People v. Moore

BROWN (Gerald), P. J.

The defendant, Eloise Moore, was convicted by a jury of burglary (Pen. Code, § 459) and grand theft (Pen. Code, §§ 484, 487) for her participation in the theft of a fur from a store. She was sentenced to nine months in the county jail for each crime, the sentences running concurrently.

On January 15, 1964, Eloise Moore and Sherry Coleman stopped in front of a fur store in Santa Ana and looked at the furs in a small display window near the front door. After a few minutes they entered. No other customers were in the store during the time Eloise and Sherry were there. Eloise asked permission of the clerk to try on a fur and while they were moving to the mink room for that purpose, Sherry left on the pretext that she had forgotten her ear keys. Eloise shortly became disinterested and walked out. She was followed by the clerk who had noticed one of the displayed furs was missing. The clerk said she had seen the fur just before the women entered and it had not been sold or removed with consent. Sensing what had happened the clerk went to the street where she saw Eloise hurriedly walk away and enter a slowly moving car which immediately drove off. A witness who followed the car several blocks, testified that the car ran a stop sign, made an illegal left turn, and was being erratically driven. The car had been rented the day before by Sherry.

Two days later Eloise was questioned by officers at her home about the theft. She denied that she knew Sherry (this was mitigated by her explanation of having known Sherry as Dimples) and that she had been in Santa Ana on January 15. These statements were false and were later admitted to he such by Eloise’s extrajudicial statements and her testimony. At the close of this interrogation Eloise was arrested.

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There are three issues: (1) The sufficiency of the evidence to support the verdicts; (2) the introduction in evidence of the defendant’s false statements (inferring a consciousness of guilt) without a showing that she had waived her rights to counsel and to remain silent; and (3) multiple punishment.

Bloise argues that the evidence is insufficient to support the verdict in that it fails to establish: (a) The corpus delicti of theft; (b) a specific intent necessary for burglary; and (e) a concerted action between Bloise and Sherry. In considering these questions the regularly repeated rule is that the appellate court must assume “the existence of every fact which the jury could have reasonably deduced from the evidence, and then determine whether such facts are sufficient to support the verdict.”