People v. Cobb

Opinion

HERNDON, J.

The information filed in this case charged appellant with forgery of a certain credit card sales slip in violation of section 470 of the Penal Code. He was further charged with a prior felony conviction of robbery. After a jury trial he was found guilty of the offense charged and the allegation of the prior conviction was found true.

The sufficiency of the evidence to prove that appellant had unlawfully used the credit card of another person and with intent to defraud had

forged the

name of the cardholder upon a sales slip evidencing the credit transaction is not questioned. Indeed, the prosecution introduced evidence of appellant’s guilt of such adequate quantity and of such convincing quality as to remove even a shadow of a reasonable doubt. Appellant himself took the stand and told a story so inherently improbable and so pre

[3]

posterous that its only conceivable effect upon the jury was to add insult to injury. Therefore, we deem it unnecessary to burden this opinion with a detailed summary of the evidence.

Appellant’s first assignment of error on this appeal from the judgment is that the trial court erred in taking judicial notice of appellant’s prior robbery conviction and in failing at the same time to take judicial notice of the fact that at one stage in the course of the nonjury trial of the former action the court had announced a finding that “the defendant is not guilty.” This contention is wholly devoid of merit.

The judgment of conviction in the former action was rendered by the Superior Court of Los Angeles County and was affirmed by Division Three of this court in an unpublished opinion filed on June 25, 1969.

1

The record of that appeal and the decision therein of which we take judicial notice (Evid. Code, § 452, subd. (d)) disclose that the statement of the trial judge during the former trial that he found defendant not guilty was made mistakenly and inadvertently and was immediately corrected. In holding that this inadvertent statement had no legal effect upon the power of the court and in no way impaired the validity of the judgment, the affirming opinion states as follows: