People v. Bennett

NOURSE, J.

Appellant was tried on an information charging him with the crime of robbery. He was convicted of robbery in the first degree and from the judgment fol

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lowing the verdict and from the order denying a motion for a new trial he prosecutes this appeal.

The facts of the robbery were not controverted, but were admitted by the defendant at the time of his arrest. On the tenth day of October, 1925, the defendant and a companion entered the offices of a practicing physician located in the Garfield Building on Market Street, San Francisco, and, leaving his companion in the waiting room, the defendant knocked at the door of the physician’s private office. When the door was opened he pointed a gun at the physician and commanded him to raise his hands. He then forced the physician to the floor, bound him with a cord, and took property from him of the value of over three thousand dollars. His companion and he then departed from the offices, but were immediately overtaken by the physician and a young lady who followed them downstairs to the second floor, where they all took the elevator to the street. The defendant and his companion then ran, followed by the physician and this young lady, until the defendant, separating from his companion, rushed into a hotel at the corner of Mason and Turk Streets and hid in a linen closet. The police officers were called, and when they appeared at the hotel they made a search of the building until they found the defendant in the> closet with the elevator operator and a woman whom he had forced into the room at the point of a gun. The door was locked behind the defendant and it was necessary for the police officer to break it open to make the arrest. Upon his apprehension the defendant stated to the officers the full details of the robbery and at no time denied his participation in the crime.

At the time of the trial all the evidence on behalf of the state was admitted without objection and stands in the record uncontroverted. The only defense offered by the defendant was that he was insane at the time of the commission of the act and that because of his mental condition he did not at that time know the difference between right and wrong with respect to the act which he was committing. The testimony of the father and mother of the defendant was offered to prove that he had received several falls from which he had become irritable and had acted peculiarly at times. The testimony of his counsel was offered to prove that four days after his arrest the defendant had complained to his counsel that he was in a serious physical condition because