People v. Young

DESMOND, P. J. Defendant charged with violating section 286 of the Penal Code, was found guilty by the court sitting without a jury. He appeals from the judgment of conviction and from the court’s order denying a new trial. He contends in his brief, filed in propria persona, that the court erred in admitting in evidence his confession of guilt which he argues was not free and voluntary; further, that [83]without the confession the corpus delicti was not established by the prosecution. He relies for this point upon section 1111 of the Penal Code, which provides that a conviction cannot be had in a criminal trial upon the testimony of an accomplice unless it be corroborated by such other evidence as shall tend to connect the defendant with the commission of the offense. Appellant cites us to People v. Robbins (1915), 171 Cal. 466 [154 P. 317], as a case involving the same charge as the one upon which he was convicted and where the court considered the application of the statute and ordered a reversal. The People in their brief summarize the situation in the following language: “Appellant argues that without the confession of appellant, there was no corpus delicti, inasmuch as the only other evidence of the commission of the crime was the testimony of the accomplice. With this, respondent agrees. But appellant further argues that the confession was erroneously admitted as evidence in that it was not freely and voluntarily given. With this, respondent disagrees.”

It appears from the transcript that on or about February 28, 1945, appellant, 31 years of age, took in as his roommate in a Los Angeles hotel, a 17-year-old boy named Dave. On March 20th, shortly before midnight, after appellant and Dave had gone to bed in the double bed where they slept customarily, two police officers attached to the Juvenile Division entered their hotel room from an adjoining room, turned on the lights and arrested both men. Next day at approximately 11:30 a.m., another police officer named Simmons took Dave to the office of Dr. DeRiver “who talks to all people placed in Central Jail on sex offenses,” and who at that very time was talking to this appellant. Simmons, testifying that he then interrogated Dave in the presence of Dr. DeRiver and appellant, related in great detail, over the objection of appellant’s counsel, the conversation which he had with Dave in that interview and which fixed the crime as having been committed upon Dave by this appellant on or about March 2d, the date charged in the information. The officer testified that he then turned to the defendant and asked him if he had heard what Dave had said and he replied that he had; further, that “what David had said was the truth.” Additional questions propounded by Simmons directly to appellant and related to the court brought answers which definitely fastened guilt upon him.