People v. Wise

KAUFMAN, P. J.

Defendant, Frank R. Wise and David A. Chavez were jointly charged with the burglary of a building in San Francisco on December 30, 1960. After duly waiving a jury, defendant was tried separately, and found guilty of burglary in the second degree (Pen. Code, §§459, 460). On this appeal from the judgment of conviction, he contends that the evidence is insufficient to support the judgment and that the trial court erroneously admitted certain evidence. We find no merit in these arguments.

The People preliminarily point out that although the written notice of appeal was not filed until 14 days after the rendition of the judgment, the notice was delivered to prison authorities within the jurisdictional 10-day requirement of rule 31(a) of the Rules on Appeal

(People

v.

Spencer,

193 Cal.App.2d 13 [13 Cal.Rptr. 881];

People

v.

Slobodion,

30 Cal.2d 362, 368 [181 P.2d 868]).

The record reveals the following facts: On December 30, 1960, at about 3 :30 p. m., Ernest G. Batchelor left his painting contracting office and shop at 3420 Eighteenth Street in San Francisco, leaving everything in good order. When he opened the shop at 9:30 the next morning, he found that the office had been ransacked, A typewriter, adding machine,

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check protector and other office equipment were missing, along with tools, electric drills, a large amount of paint brushes, the firm’s Standard Oil Station service cards, 2,000 blank payroll cheeks and one of the company trucks. He discovered that one of the back windows 7-8 feet above the ground, was broken. Several empty 5-gallon paint buckets were stacked up under the window. There was also a rolled-up ball of black electrical tape with slivers of glass on it. The fingerprint found on the tape matched that of the defendant.

At the time of the burglary, the defendant lived at the Star Hotel at 2176 Mission Street. The back yard of the hotel faced the side of the Batchelor premises. A stairway at the rear of the hotel led to the back yard of the hotel, which was separated from the back window of the Batchelor premises only by a small fence. On December 31, Chavez was arrested while knocking on the door of the defendant’s room and had the stolen credit cards. Subsequently, a portion of the stolen property was recovered at the Oakland home of the mother-in-law of one of the defendant’s friends, Jack Van Steen.