People v. Barrow

SPENCE, J.

Defendant, a colored woman, was convicted upon a trial by jury of the crime of grand theft and was sentenced to imprisonment in the California Institution for Women at Tehachapi. She appeals from the judgment and from the order denying her motion for a new trial.

On this appeal, defendant makes several contentions, among which is the claim that the evidence was insufficient to support the judgment. It will therefore be necessary to set forth the evidence upon which the prosecution relied to show that defendant had stolen the wallet of the complaining witness.

The complaining witness, a garage man, had attended the Fox Theatre in San Francisco on the evening in question. After leaving the theatre around 10 o ’clock he walked up McAllister Street to a point near Gough Street. As he passed Latham’s Storage House he heard a noise or groan coming from the entrance way. He went into the entrance way, which was dark, and there found the defendant. He testified, “She put her arms around me, and her arms came down back of me, around my back. I thought it was sort of funny so I pushed her away. . . . Then I thought it was rather funny that she would do that. ... I was standing over there, and I started to walk out. I felt for my wallet. Right away I saw my wallet was gone and I grabbed her by the shoulders and I yelled, ‘You have got my wallet.’ And I pulled her out on the sidewalk . . . she said she never had it, when I pulled her out on the sidewalk. And so I yelled, and there was a colored gentleman on the corner that came running down. And I did not know what it was. He yelled out; he said, ‘What is going on here.’ ... I let her go and she went behind him. ’ ’ He further testified that he was carrying his wallet in his right hip pocket. The colored man did not speak to defendant and after defendant had left, the colored man told the complaining witness that he did not know the defendant. The complaining witness followed defendant down McAllister Street and then

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stopped at a store to telephone the police. He abandoned this idea as he feared he would lose sight of defendant. He again located defendant on Turk Street where he found her in company of the same colored man. He then ran to a police station on Ellis Street and returned to the vicinity with the police in a police car. Defendant and the same colored man were then found at the corner of Ellis and Gough Streets and were taken from there to the police station. A search of these parties did not result in the finding of the wallet. The police therefore searched the entrance way of Latham’s Storage House but failed to find the wallet. On the following morning at about 4 a. m., the wallet was found by a 15-year-old boy while delivering papers. As the boy raised a hanging “No Parking” sign, attached to the doors in the entrance way of Latham’s Storage House, for the purpose of inserting the morning paper in the mail slot, the wallet dropped to the floor of the entrance way. The wallet contained identifying papers as well as money and the boy returned the wallet and contents to the complaining witness on the same day.