People v. Williams

FINCH, P. J.

The defendant was convicted of the crime of burglary of the first degree and appeals from the judgment of conviction and from the order denying his motion for a new trial.

The building burglarized is on 4th Street, between L and M, in the city of Sacramento, in what the appellant describes in his closing brief as “the densely populated oriental section of the city.” The owner left the building on Saturday evening, October 1, 1921, at 8:30, and on his return the next morning at 8:30 he discovered that the place had been entered from the rear and fifteen pairs of trousers, eight or nine coats, and between fifty and sixty shirts stolen. The defendant was arrested October 5th. Prior to his arrest the defendant sold two of the stolen shirts to a man on the street and a pair of the stolen trousers at a second-hand store, signing the name “Harry Wilson” instead of his own at the latter place. At the trial he denied having sold the two shirts but admitted that he sold the trousers. He denied having signed the name ‘1 Harry Wilson. ’ ’ In explaining his possession of the trousers, he testified that on the fourth day of October there were ten or twelve men gambling under the Yolo end of the M Street bridge and that one of them t ‘went broke in the game, and he asked several fellows if—

[268]

who wanted to buy the pants; by me being a little ahead of the game, he asked me, and I paid him a dollar and a half for the pants.” W. M. Hallaban, detective sergeant of the Police Department of Sacramento, testified that he interviewed the defendant prior to his arrest and that the defendant at first denied having sold any trousers at a second-hand store but later admitted that he had sold a pair, not involved apparently in this ease, at a second-hand store October 3d; that witness ‘1 asked him where he got them. He says he was shooting crap or playing cards with a bunch of fellows down along the river front there. A fellow sold them to him for a dollar and a half.”

A reversal of the case is asked on two grounds: 1. That there is no evidence connecting the defendant with the commission of the crime. 2. That there is no evidence tending to show that the burglary was committed in the nighttime. There can be no doubt that the evidence is sufficient to warrant the jury in finding that the defendant committed the burglary. The only evidence, other than that stated, tending to show that the burglary was committed in the night-time is that of a witness who saw two men in the alley near the place where the entry was made at 10:30 in the evening. One of them was about the height of the defendant and the other was small. The witness was within about twelve feet of them but could not tell whether they were white or colored. The defendant is a colored man. The witness did not testify to any suspicious or unusual conduct on the part of these men arid his testimony must be treated as of slight value.