People v. Hansen

ARCHBALD, J.,

pro tem.

Defendant was charged with robbery, the jury returning a 'verdict of guilty. From an order denying his motion for a new trial and from the judgment entered on said verdict he has appealed. No question is raised as to the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain the verdict and judgment, but appellant urges that the court erred in giving certain instructions and in refusing to give others requested by him.

The arrest grew out of the robbery of a drug-store in Los Angeles on the evening of July 19, 1932. According to the testimony for the plaintiff, three men entered the store. Two of them, with guns, forced the occupants to face the wall in the back room, while the third took money out of the cash register. Appellant was not identified as being one of the three inside the store, but was identified as being on the outside, and, in company with the three, as having run to a ear near by, with the driver, all of whom jumped into the car which was driven away. Evidently the witnesses, although they identified the appellant, failed to identify a man who pleaded guilty to being one of the three in the store.

Appellant requested an instruction on the presumption of innocence, which was refused by the court “except as covered by instructions given”. Appellant admits that the instruction as given by the court correctly stated the law, but apparently complains because the court gave all of the fifteen instructions requested by plaintiff and refused all but one of the eighteen offered by him; and also because the instruction given was involved with the doctrine of reasonable doubt. We see no error in the instruction given or any prejudice to appellant that could possibly have resulted therefrom.

Appellant offered an instruction which in effect charged that where the verbal admission of a person charged with crime is offered in evidence the whole of the admission' must be taken together, as well that part which is favorable to the accused as that which is against him, and that if the favorable part is not disproved, or is not improbable or un

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true when considered with all the other evidence, such part is “entitled to as much consideration from the jury as any other part of the statement”. We see. no error in the court’s refusal to give such instruction. An admission against interest is admissible because of the great probability that an individual would not make a statement tending to injure himself unless the same were true. If there are parts of a conversation which are so admissible as against interest, the entire conversation is admissible “even though it may embrace . . . self serving declarations” (sec. 1854, Code Civ. Proc.;