People v. Harshaw

DOOLING, J. pro tem. Defendant appeals from a judgment of conviction of assault with intent to commit rape. The case was tried without a jury and the sole attack on the judgment is that it is not supported by the evidence.

In support of the judgment we must assume that the trial court believed the evidence most favorable to the judgment rendered and drew any reasonable inferences from that. evidence which would support the court’s finding of defendant’s guilt. (People v. Perkins, 8 Cal.2d 502, 510-511 [66 P.2d 631]; People v. Green, 13 Cal.2d 37, 42 [87 P.2d 821].)

[148]Defendant (a petty officer in the Navy) first saw the complaining witness (an unmarried woman twenty years of age) on a street corner in San Jose at about 11 p. m. on January 5, 1945. She was waiting for a bus to take her to her home and was standing in front of a jewelry store window. The defendant approached her and asked her about a ring on display, whether it was an engagement ring or a marriage ring, and she replied that it was an engagement ring. According to the complaining witness nothing further was said at that time. She boarded her bus and defendant followed her. She sat near the front of the bus and defendant stood in the rear. She testified that she did not see him on the bus at any time. When she left the bus near her home defendant also alighted but she did not observe that fact. She walked toward her home in the middle of the street. After she had proceeded some distance she observed the defendant on the sidewalk. She continued to walk in the middle of the street and he walked in the same direction on the sidewalk. The defendant asked her where 1313 was and she approached him and answered that she did not know. She continued to walk in the middle of the street until she neared her home when she crossed over to the sidewalk. She then noticed that the defendant was running toward her. She screamed and the defendant put one arm around her body and the other hand over her mouth. She continued to scream and the defendant told her that if she didn’t stop screaming he would cut her throat. Her screams attracted a neighbor who came out onto his front porch and the defendant fled. The defendant was seen by other witnesses shortly afterward running across a street toward them. He asked them if a ear standing there was a taxicab and when they answered in the negative he proceeded on his way. He was picked up by a police “prowl ear” which had been advised by radio to be on the lookout for him and which he mistook for a taxicab.