People v. Glass

BARNARD, P. J. The defendant, having been convicted by a jury of the crime of grand theft, has appealed from the judgment.

[186]On January 21, 1943, the appellant purchased a house trailer from a dealer in San Diego on a conditional sales contract. He turned in another trailer as the first payment and the contract called for monthly payments, and further provided that title to the trailer sold should remain in the seller and that it should not be removed from this state. About a month later, and just before the first monthly payment came due, the appellant left San Diego with the trailer and went to Hawthorne, Nevada, where he continued to live in the trailer until May, 1943, when he sold it to a resident of Nevada. He was arrested on his return to San Diego in August, 1943.

While appellant, in his brief, admits that he converted this trailer it is contended that it does not sufficiently appear that the required criminal intent was formed in San Diego County and not in Nevada, and that the court erred in admitting certain evidence and in giving an instruction bearing upon the question of intent.

The appellant’s wife testified that they left San Diego about a month after January 21, 1943, and that they went to Nevada for the purpose of benefiting the appellant’s health. On the other hand, it appears that the appellant purchased this trailer and signed the contract under the name of Melvin Steele; that he left San Diego on or about the date when the first monthly payment became due; that he did not notify the dealer that he was leaving; and that he took the trailer directly out of the state although he knew that he had contracted not to do so. When arrested, he told this dealer that he had left the trailer on a side street in San Diego but did not know which street. Shortly thereafter, he told an officer that he had left the trailer on a street either in Nevada or Arizona, and that he had abandoned it because he was unable to make the payments. He later admitted that he had sold the trailer to a woman in Hawthorne, Nevada, receiving another trailer and a sum of money. An officer testified that he had a conversation with the appellant on August 9, 1943, in which he asked the appellant about a trailer that he was reported to have bought about a year previously from a company in Lincoln, Nebraska, telling him that they had a circular and were trying to locate him and that trailer. His reply was that “Their guess was just as good as his.” This officer also testified as to another conversation with the appellant on August 20, 1943, in which