People v. Bringhurst

WASTE, J.

The two defendants, who are appellants here, were accused by the grand jury of Los Angeles County, jointly with James Wheaton, Calvin Rowell, and Jess Wendell, of the murder of Harry Clester and W. L. Brett, two police officers of the city of Los Angeles. The indictment was- based upon a crime in which all of the defendants named therein participated. The defendants Wheaton and Rowell were tried together, as were these appellants. Wheaton and Rowell were sentenced to the state penitentiary for life. The judgment in their case was affirmed

(People

v.

Wheaton,

64 Cal. App. 58 [220 Pac. 451]), and a petition to have the cause heard in the supreme court was denied. Bringhurst and Thompson, these appellants, were sentenced to pay the death penalty, from which judgment they prosecute this appeal.

Several assignments of error are made. It is first contended that the evidence is insufficient to justify or sustain the verdict rendered against the appellants or either of them. This contention is without merit. A complete and comprehensive statement of the events preceding and leading up to the killing of Chester and Brett is to be found in the opinion of the court in

People

v.

Wheaton, supra.

It is unnecessary to do more than summarize them here. Briefly, the facts are that all of those mentioned in the indictment were together on the night of the 6th of December, 1921. All of them, except Wheaton, carried revolvers. Three nights prior thereto they had participated in a robbery. On the evening in question they planned other similar offenses, but were deterred from carrying their plans into execution and became suspicious that they were

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being watched by the police. At about 11 o’clock that night they were all together in an automobile with its lights out. Witnesses narrated how the two police officers in another automobile drew alongside of that occupied by the defendants and told them to stop. The officers, who were in uniform, got out of their machine and began to interrogate the defendants, and one of the policemen started to get into the automobile with them. A number of shots were fired from the unlighted machine, in which were the defendants, and it moved rapidly away. While the shooting was going on witnesses saw the two police officers fall. It was found that each had been shot several times, and when the witnesses reached them they were lying dead in the street. A man, identified as the appellant Thompson, was seen to get out of the unlighted machine and run rapidly away during the shooting. The actions of the defendants in the days following the shooting indicated an attempt at concealment. After the arrest of Wheaton and Rowell they made statements regarding the killing of the two policemen which implicated all of the defendants.