People v. Hansen

Foote, C. The defendant, Hansen, was convicted of grand larceny. He appeals from the judgment therein rendered, and from an order denying him a new trial.

[292]The sole ground upon which he bases his contention for a reversal of the judgment and order is that the evidence entirely fails to support the verdict of the jury.

His claim is, that the money which he was charged to have stolen was in fact taken by him from the clothes of his sleeping friend for safe-keeping; that the friend was drunk in a restaurant, and the money alleged to have been stolen was taken openly, in the presence of two other persons, with the avowed intention to keep it safely until the friend and companion should awake and become sober.

The evidence does, without conflict, show that the taking was open, and in the presence of other persons, and with the avowed intention of taking care of it for the sleeping and intoxicated friend. The doubt which is thrown upon the transaction as being bona fide, and as really accompanied by the avowed intent, is the subsequent conduct of the defendant, which throws light upon the true and secretly entertained intent to convert the money larcenously to his own use at the time of the taking.

The defendant was -without means, a man of mature age, who fell in with a boy at a lumber camp in Sonoma County. The boy had something over $170, and after some little acquaintance between them, the defendant desiring, as he said, to go to Seattle, the boy offered to pay his expenses there and to accompany him.

In pursuance of this plan, the two came to San Francisco, and proceeded to get intoxicated, after which they went to a restaurant, and the boy lay down on a lounge, with the apparent desire to sleep off his intoxication; the defendant, not so drunk as his companion, took $150, in seven twenty and two five dollar gold coins, from a vest of the boy, which he had taken off and placed under his pillow. This was done in the presence of Gustave Dallinge, a cook and waiter in the restaurant, and of a Mrs. Oswaldt.

[293]The defendant then went off, and purchased a ticket for himself and the boy to Seattle, for which he paid twenty dollars, and, getting drunk after a while in a saloon, was put in jail by a police-officer.