People v. Canyun

CRAIG, J.

The appellant was convicted upon an information charging him with having on or about the twenty-seventh day of February, 1926, entered the dwelling-house of a Mrs. M. Meyers, in the city of Los Angeles, with intent then and there to commit the crime of larceny. The jury returned a verdict of burglary in the first degree; a motion for a new trial was presented, and denied, and he appeals from the ruling upon such motion and from the judgment.

It appears from the testimony of the complaining witness, Mrs. Meyers, that at about 1:30 A. M. of said date she awoke and discovered the defendant standing at the foot of her bed holding a portion of a broom handle; that she immediately jumped from her bed and commanded him to leave the house, whereupon the intruder ran into the kitchen and leaped out through the window; that a large electric light had been turned on in the kitchen, which enabled her to unmistakably identify the appellant as a man whom she had seen on an average of twice a week for a period of about two years at meetings of a society of which both were members. The witness testified that she then discovered that her pocketbook had been removed from her sewing-machine and lay on the kitchen table; that her coin purse had been taken therefrom and all the money which she had left in the purse was gone; both the pocketbook and purse had been turned inside out; that a flashlight which she had placed on her dressing-table was also in the kitchen beside the pocketbook. Other witnesses testified to having heard Mrs. Meyers’ loud cries to “get out of here,” and that there was a commotion and scuffling of feet at about the time in question in her apartment. Mrs. Meyers and a police officer both testified that she telephoned for the police on the same morning and that she stated that the name of the burglar was Canyun and that he lived on Bast Twentieth

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Street, but that she did not know his first name, nor the number of his place of residence.

There are many alleged errors assigned as grounds for reversal, but they may all be summarized concisely under the following heads: (1) insufficiency of evidence to sustain the verdict and judgment; (2) errors of the trial court in its rulings during the trial, and (3) errors in instructing the jury.