People v. Muchupoff

KNIGHT, J.

The defendant herein was convicted of burglary in the second degree and has appealed from the judgment of conviction and from the order denying his motion for a new trial.

Shortly after 4 o’clock on the morning of February 14, 1926, one Mike Britwin, occupying an apartment in an apartment house on Eighth Street, San Francisco, was awakened and observed a man, whom he identified as appellant, passing through the doorway between his bedroom and the dining-room. He arose immediately and followed the intruder into the hall, but the latter disap

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peared at the entrance to the back stairway leading to the upper and lower floors. Britwin then returned to his room and ascertained that $9.75 in silver and a keepsake twenty-five cent piece coined in the year 1876 had been stolen from the top of his bureau. A suit of clothes was also taken from the room. He further discovered that his keys, which he had thoughtlessly left on the outer side of the door of his apartment leading to the hallway, were missing. He then returned to the hallway and after trying to arouse the landlady by ringing her door-bell, proceeded to the upper floor of the apartment house, where he found appellant. He grappled with him, both rolling down the back stairs to the floor on which the burglary was committed. The landlady, hearing the noise, came into the hall and asked the cause of the trouble. Britwin, still holding on to the appellant, who was struggling to get away, replied that he had caught a burglar and requested her to call the police. Upon arrival of the officers, Britwin minutely described the property stolen from his room. Thereupon appellant was searched and the keys and money, including the twenty-five cent piece, were found on his person. The suit of clothes had been dropped in the hall. Appellant at the time was not wearing coat, vest or shoes, and in response to inquiries made by the officers as to what he was doing in the house partly undressed, stated first that he had been visiting a friend in the house, but he was unable to give the location of his friend’s room. Finally he said that he had left his clothing and shoes in the lot back of the apartment house, to which he had gained entrance by scaling the fence in the rear and coming up the back stairs. The clothes and shoes were thereupon found by the officers where appellant said he had left them. Appellant at the time was either under the influence of liquor, or pretending to be, as one of the officers testified. Later, at the police station, $53 in currency was found secreted upon appellant’s person. It is apparent, without discussion, that the evidence above narrated is amply sufficient to sustain the conviction.