People v. Haughey

CASHIN, J.

Appellant was charged jointly with William L. Rhinehart and two others named Gleason and Robinsqn with the crime of conspiracy to commit a series of robberies, together with the commission of five separate offenses of robbery. Appellant and Rhinehart were found guilty of the offense first mentioned, the former being also convicted on three of the robbery counts. The jury disagreed as to his guilt on the remaining counts and the trial court set aside the verdict on two of the robbery charges. A motion

[543]

for a new trial was denied, from which order and from the judgment the appeal was taken.

Appellant urges as grounds for reversal an insufficiency of the evidence to sustain the verdict and that the court erred in its rulings on objections to the admission of evidence and its instructions to the jury.

Gleason and Robinson, who were offered as witnesses for the prosecution, testified in substance that they, with appellant and Rhinehart, planned the commission of a series of robberies which were perpetrated by them; that appellant’s part therein was to telephone to prospective victims and ask for immediate delivery of illicit liquor to a fictitious person at a certain address; that upon compliance the other conspirators would force an entrance into the residence of their victims or that such person would be followed and robbed when the opportunity arose. Specific instances of such robberies were related by the witnesses. Several persons testified to the fact that they had been robbed by the methods described; one of the witnesses indentified Rhine-hart as one of his assailants and testified that a certain stickpin, shown by the evidence to have been sold by appellant, was taken from the witness on the occasion of the robbery. At the trial appellant admitted his acquaintance with the other defendants and the sale by him of the pin, testifying that the sale was made at the request of Robinson, he not knowing that the pin had been stolen. While the possession of stolen property unexplained is not sufficient to show guilt, it is a circumstance tending to show guilt, and may be considered by the jury in connection with other testimony

(People

v.