People v. White

FOX, P. J.

Defendant was convicted of violating section 11500 of the Health and Safety Code, a felony (possession of heroin). He has appealed from the judgment.

Acting on information furnished by an arrestee that narcotics would be found in the room of one Griggs, in the Lincoln Hotel in Los Angeles, Officers Alexander and Heldoorn proceeded to said hotel to investigate. They discovered that he occupied Room 65. Upon going to that room the officers were given permission by Griggs to search it, but found no narcotics. While still in the hotel, the officers received information from defendant’s wife that they should investigate Room 60. They went to Room 60 and knocked on the door.

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Defendant opened the door and, when he did so, the officers observed on the floor and on the table a whitish powder that resembled heroin. They also observed on the table a quantity of various colored balloons. They then entered the room and placed the defendant under arrest. There was an air-well outside the window of this room. The officers recovered therefrom six colored balloons, inside of which they found quantities of a whitish powder. They also found a whitish powder, some of which they retrieved, on the soles of defendant’s shoes. It was the opinion of William King, a qualified forensic chemist, that the white powder in question was heroin. At the scene of the arrest, defendant said to Officer Heldoorn, “There is enough stuff in this room to send me back to the joint. Can’t we make a deal?’’ He admitted to the officer that he knew the balloons retrieved from the air-well had been in the room. He explained that he was on parole and had to get rid of the stuff. On examining the condition of the screen of the window opening on the air-well, the officers discovered that it had been ripped.

Defendant was the manager of the hotel. However, he was not living in Room 60. A tenant by the name of Henry Young had been occupying it; his rent was paid up to April 27th, the date of defendant’s arrest. He left that night. Defendant did a little tailoring work. He testified that Bob Parris came to the hotel to buy a suit from Young, and that his wife suggested that he go up with Parris to see the suit. Defendant testified that the officers knocked on the door and identified themselves as police officers and that when he opened the door they walked right in. He denied making the statement to which the officers testified. Defendant explained that Young, the tenant, had gone out to buy some whiskey at the time of the arrest, and that he had not seen him since. Parris was over by the window when the officers entered the room.