People v. Neighbors

DORAN, J. Defendant was adjudged guilty by a jury of the offense of second-degree burglary in one count and in a second count of grand theft. The facts briefly are as follows : A branch office of the Western Union Telegraph Company at San Pedro, California, was burglarized and a small safe weighing about five hundred pounds was removed. The offense was committed on the night of Sunday, December 16, 1945, or early Monday morning. The safe was found later; it had been opened and the contents consisting of $8,000 in negotiable checks and over $7,000 in currency had been removed. Two of the checks were later deposited by defendant to his account in a San Pedro bank; one on February 11, 1946, and the other on March 2, 1946. These checks, referred to in the record as “Treasury checks” were drawn on the “Treasurer of the United States” as “Fort MacArthur”; one in the sum of $179.75 and the other for $194.93. Defendant was arrested March 11, 1946. When taken to the police station at San Pedro defendant admitted the burglary and theft to four police officers.

A pair of trousers and a shirt obtained at defendant’s home after the arrest which were said to show cuts supposedly from broken glass, were in evidence.

At the trial defendant admitted having confessed to the officers but testified further in substance that it was to avoid punishment likely to result from possession of the aforesaid [204]mentioned “government cheeks” and because of a promise on the part of the officers that the punishment would be only a jail sentence. For example, defendant testified, referring to one of the officers, “And then he said I can either answer to the Federal government or rap, I forget the term he used, for 10 years on these stolen checks, Government checks, that was taken out of this Western Union, or if you want to cooperate with us and help us clear up this job we will help you in every way we can, I think we can promise you a light jail sentence and we won’t oppose straight probation.” There was also evidence that defendant was in Modesto at the time of the alleged offense.

It is contended on appeal that the court erred, “in refusing to give certain instructions and in giving other instructions.” The jury was instructed that “it is wholly immaterial on what day or night the offense charged in the information was committed, provided you believe from the evidence it was committed, and that the same was committed within three years prior to the filing of the information in this ease”; and on the subject of alibi was instructed as follows: “An alibi simply means that the defendant was at another place at the time the crime charged is alleged to have been committed. All the evidence should be carefully considered by you, and, if the evidence on the subject, considered with all the other evidence, is sufficient to raise a reasonable doubt as to the guilt of the defendant, you should acquit him. It is sufficient to justify an acquittal if the evidence upon that point raises a reasonable doubt of his presence at the time and place of the commission of the crime charged, if you find that a crime was committed.”