People v. Hill

CONREY, P. J.

The defendant was convicted upon six counts charging grand theft, committed by him at the times and in the amounts following, that is to say: Count 2, August 15, 1930, $1,000; count 4, August 19, 1930, $2,000; count 24, March 2, 1931, $20,000; count 26, March 18, 1931, $15,000; count 30, April 2, 1931, $15,000; count 32, April 21, 1931, $15,000. Upon the separate verdicts returned the court rendered several judgments, which for the purposes of the appeal are treated as one judgment. The defendant

[555]

appeals from the judgment and from an order denying his motion for a new trial.

The sentence as pronounced by the court provides that the terms of imprisonment on counts 2, 24 and 26 .shall run consecutively, and that the imprisonment on counts 4, 30 and 32 shall run concurrently with count 2. It is contended by appellant that the theft constituted only one offense; therefore that his conviction and sentence as for several different crimes is erroneous, and for that reason should be reversed.

At the time of the commission of the alleged offenses, and for a long time prior thereto, defendant was chief deputy of the county clerk of the county of Los Angeles, who by virtue of his office is clerk of the superior court. During the trial of an action in said court there were received in evidence two exhibits, consisting of two packages of $1,000 bills, amounting to a total sum of '$75,000. These bills, while thus in custody of the court, came into the possession and control of the defendant. At that time the county clerk had certain rented safe deposit boxes in the First and Spring Street branch of the Security-First National Panic in the city of Los Angeles, one of them being box No. 78. The county clerk and this defendant were the only persons who had keys for the box, and they were the only persons authorized to have access to the box. The carefully kept records of the bank show that the visits to this box, during the period in question here, were all made by the defendant, and that no such visits were made by the clerk. The evidence further shows that prior to the time of the alleged thefts the seventy-five bills were for safekeeping placed by the defendant in said box No. 78. Ultimately, and after the date of the latest of said alleged larcenies, it was discovered that the bills had disappeared from the box. So far as the record shows they never have been found.