People v. Farrell

FINLAYSON, P. J.

Defendants were convicted of the crime of grand larceny, the charge being that they feloniously took and carried away automobile tires of the aggregate value of $1,100, the property of a firm doing business in the city of Los Angeles under the name of Martin & Green. The appeal is from the judgment and from the order denying defendants a new trial.

It is contended that the only evidence of guilt is the circumstance that defendants were in possession of the stolen property shortly after the theft; and since evidence of recent unexplained possession of stolen property, standing alone, is not sufficient

to

justify a verdict of guilty of larceny, it is claimed that the evidence is insufficient to support the verdict. In passing upon this claim it is, of course, our duty to consider in the strongest light the testimony introduced by the prosecution, to disregard all evidence conflicting therewith which was offered by the defendants, and to affirm the judgment if there be any substantial showing which tends to connect the accused with the commission of the alleged larceny. The facts, in substance, as illustrated by such testimony, are these: Defendants are brothers. They previously had been convicted of a felony and at the time of the theft were but recently out of the state penitentiary on parole. On July 7, 1923, the tires in question, as well as certain tubes—new tires and tubes which were a part of the stock owned by Martin

&

Green—were stored in that firm’s place of business in the city of Los Angeles. They were there as late as 9:30 o’clock of the evening of that day, at which hour Sam Green, one of the members of the copartnership, closed his firm’s place of business by locking the doors and windows, and then

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left the premises. The articles were stolen some time during the night. At about midnight, or within two and a half hours after Sam Green had closed the store, the two defendants, in an automobile which one of them was driving and which was laden with thirty-three of the stolen tires and about fifty of the stolen tubes, drove into the Hill View Garage in the city of Los Angeles. It is claimed by appellants, though the point does not seem to be urged with any great degree of confidence, that the evidence is insufficient to establish the identity of the tires and tubes which defendants brought to the Hill View Garage with those which admittedly were stolen from Martin & Green’s place of business during the night in question. Without specifically reciting the evidence which bears upon this phase of the case, let it suffice to say that we are satisfied from a reading of the record that the jury was warranted in its conclusion that the tires and tubes which defendants brought to the Hill View Garage were a part of those which had been stolen from Martin & Green. i