People v. Stevens

GRAY, C.—

The defendant was convicted of robbery, and appeals from the judgment and from an order denying him a new trial.

1. He complains, first, that the information is insufficient as against the motion in arrest of judgment. The alleged defect consists in the description of the property of which the prosecuting witness is said to have been robbed. The description is as follows: “One purse containing twenty-eight dollars and sixty-two cents in lawful money of the United States of America of the value of twenty-eight dollars and sixty-two cents in lawful money of the United States, the personal property of him, the said Morres Aronstein, then and there in the possession of said Morres Aronstein,” etc. The point urged is that the information is uncertain in that it cannot be told whether the “value refers to the purse or to the money contained in the purse, or which the defendant is charged with having stolen.”

The allegation as to value was unnecessary and immaterial, and may be disregarded. The felonious taking of personal property in the possession of another from his person or

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immediate presence and against his will, accomplished by means of force or fear, is robbery, irrespective of the value of the property so taken. (Pen. Code, see. 211;

People

v.

Chuey Ying Git,

100 Cal. 437;

People

v.

Richards,

136 Cal. 127.)

The defendant could not have taken the purse containing the money without taking the money that was in the purse, and it is therefore clear that the information charges the taking of the money as well as the purse. The information is therefore sufficient as against the motion in arrest of judgment.

2. It is next contended that the evidence disclosed a case of larceny, and not robbery. The prosecuting witness testified that he went to bed with defendant, hanging his pantaloons containing some thirty-five dollars in money on the headboard of the bed; that soon thereafter he awoke to find the defendant standing up on the bed over him, with these same pantaloons in one hand and a razor in the other. The prosecuting witness then asked defendant: “What are you doing?” Defendant replied: “I am after your stuff.” The prosecuting witness then grabbed the pantaloons from the defendant and jumped toward the door. He is very confident that the money was still in the pantaloons at this time and had not been removed from them. The defendant beat him to the door and stood against it, and threatened and menaced the prosecuting witness with a razor, striking him under the chin with the hand that held the razor. Defendant said: “Now, that is what I got you up here for. I got you up here for your stuff. I want your stuff and you give it up.” The prosecuting witness was very much frightened at this, and threw his pantaloons on the bed to attract the defendant away from the door. As the defendant went for the pantaloons, the prosecuting witness unlocked the door and escaped. The defendant then rifled the pantaloons of the greater portion of the money. These facts disclose a case of robbery. It may very well be that taking the pantaloons down from the headboard while the owner slept constituted a larceny, but the owner recaptured the pantaloons with the money and purse in them, and was thereafter induced, “against his will, accomplished by means of force and fear,” to yield up to the