People v. Palmer

BARNARD, P. J.

The defendant was charged with attempted child stealing in violation of section 278 of the Penal Code, and with two prior felony convictions. He admitted the prior convictions and a jury found him guilty on the charge here involved. He has appealed from the judgment and from an order denying his motion for a new trial.

The incident in question occurred on a little used road which runs into the hills back of Chula Vista. According to the evidence this road “is just a trail,” has never been graded, is very rough, and is so narrow that there is no room for two cars to pass. There were two or three houses on the

[698]

road near where it leaves Chula Vista and the purpose of the road was to serve two or three houses several miles up in the hills. On this occasion a girl 17 years of age was walking along this road toward Chula Vista on her way to school and carrying some books and a purse. As she neared Chula Vista the appellant came up the road toward her driving an old model green Chevrolet sedan. The girl stepped out of a rut to permit the car to pass but the appellant stopped his car, jumped out and grabbed her, ordered her to get in his car, and struggled with her in an attempt to force her into the car. The girl dropped her school boobs and purse and after a struggle succeeded in getting away. She ran several hundred feet to a house in the direction of Chula Vista, arriving in an hysterical condition, and a woman there telephoned to the Chula Vista police department.

The chief of police with another officer responded to the call and arrived at this house within a few minutes. The officers were given a description of the car and of the appellant and immediately started up the road in the direction the appellant had gone. About 500 feet up the road they found the girl’s school books and purse lying in the center of a circle of footprints about five feet in diameter, which they described as looking as though someone had been going around in a circle. As they proceeded up the road they saw a green Chevrolet sedan coming down out of the hills at a high rate of speed for that kind of a road. Being unable to get by the officers’ ear the appellant stopped and immediately said, before any accusation had been made against him: “What the Hell is the matter? This is a public road here. I have got a right to drive on this road.” The officers then placed him under arrest and without asking the reason for his arrest the appellant said: “You can’t pin anything on me, I wasn’t out of the car.” The appellant then told the officers that he had driven into the hills to look for rabbits, although he had no gun with him. At the trial he testified that he had gone into the hills to look at a piece of real estate and that he had told the officers that he had gone to look for rabbits “for the purpose of throwing them off of any idea of how I may have arrived at that point on the road.”