People v. Wochnick

McCOMB, J. From a judgment of guilty of murder of the second degree after trial before the court without a jury, defendant appeals. There is also an appeal from the order denying his motion for a new trial.

This cause has heretofore been before us in the case of People v. Wochnick, 98 Cal.App.2d 124 [219 P.2d 70]. The [542]judgment was reversed because of error of the trial court in the admission of evidence.

The only ground of appeal assigned by defendant is that the judgment and order denying his motion for a new trial “are against the law and the evidence in that the evidence being wholly circumstantial, when considered in the light most favorable to the people [a] disproves the claimed motives and the theories urged by the prosecution; and [b] there is no other tenable hypothesis upon which” the judgment and the order are warranted by the evidence.

This proposition is untenable.

[a] Proof of motive in the commission of the crime of murder is not necessary to sustain a judgment of conviction. (People v. Greig, 14 Cal.2d 548, 561 [95 P.2d 936].) Hence, assuming the first part of defendant’s contention to be correct it would not afford a basis for a reversal of the judgment in this case.

[b] The evidence upon which defendant was convicted is succinctly set forth in the opinion prepared for this court by Mr. Justice Wilson in People v. Wochnick, supra, thus:

That James Kibrick, the deceased, “received the injuries which caused his death in his liquor store on the corner of Temple and Fremont Streets in the city of Los Angeles. He had been severely beaten and cut, apparently with broken liquor bottles, about his face, head and hands and although those injuries alone would have probably caused his death, the immediate cause was a wound from a knife which had been plunged into his chest, piercing his heart. The knife belonged to the victim and was customarily kept beside'the cash register.

“Philip Anast testified he called at the liquor store to make a delivery and saw the victim lying on his back behind the counter in a pool of what seemed to be blood and other liquid; that defendant was straddling the legs of the victim in a more or less squatting position and it appeared to him as if defendant was just releasing the shirt front of the person on the floor. Defendant told the witness the man had been beaten and Anast ran out to call the police. When he returned to the store the victim was sitting in a chair between the counter and the shelves. He arose as they entered and Anast noticed what seemed to be a cigar butt protruding from the victim’s shirt. He later identified the object as the taped handle of a knife.