People v. Pettinger

California Court of Appeal Oct 10, 1928 No. Docket No. 1725.Published

Before: Crail

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Holding. The court held that the defendant's conviction for burglary was valid despite the consolidation of the trials for his pleas of not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity, as the defendant invited the procedure and suffered no prejudice to his constitutional rights. Furthermore, the court affirmed that a 'service station' constitutes a building under burglary statutes and that partial entry of the body is sufficient to establish the crime.

Issues

Whether an information specifying a street intersection in a named city, county, and state is sufficiently definite.
Whether a 'service station' constitutes a building within the meaning of the burglary statute.
Whether the partial entry of a defendant's arm into a building constitutes burglary.
Whether the consolidation of trials for pleas of not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity violates due process when invited by the defendant.

Disposition. affirmed

Quotations verified verbatim against the opinion

“An appellate court will not reverse a case by reason of an alleged error in the proceedings occasioned by express consent of the defendant and his counsel, unless bound to do so by some controlling rule of law.”

CRAIL, J., pro tem.

No appeal lies from an order denying a motion in arrest of judgment, but the order may be reviewed on the appeal from the judgment.

(People

Bundy,

168 Cal. 777 [145 Pac. 573];

People

Rogers,

163 Cal. 476 [126 Pac. 143].)

The information reads as follows: “The said Fred Pettinger, on the 8th day of May A. D. nineteen hundred twenty-eight within the said county of Ventura, state of California, and before the filing of this information, did then and there, Wilfully, unlawfully, feloniously and burglariously' enter

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the Murr Bros. Service Station, of N. Murr and Ellis Murr, at A Street and Oxnard blvd. in the city of Oxnard, in said county of Ventura, with the felonious intent then and there to commit the crime of theft.” To this information defendant pleaded “not guilty,” and “not guilty by reason of insanity.” Only one trial was had and one verdict rendered, to wit: “Guilty as charged.”

Respondent proved that appellant, on the night of May 8th, or in the early morning of May 9, 1928, drove up to the said service station in a Ford car and, after waiting a short time, with a pair of pliers broke out a window light. He then lifted out and placed in his car a sales-registering device, and drove off. All of which the defendant subsequently admitted to the officers who arrested him, and to the court when he was sentenced.

Appellant first contends that the information does not state a crime because it is indefinite as to the place where it was committed, and contends that “the location given is only a street intersection.” An examination of the information, set out above, shows that the city, county and state were given, and the location was not indefinite.

It is next contended that the words “service station” do not come within the purview of section 459 of the Penal Code which in defining burglary refers to “any house, room, apartment, tenement, shop, warehouse, store, mill, barn, stable, outhouse or other building” etc.

People v. Pettinger

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