People v. Walker

SHINN, P. J. John R. Walker and Mural Tashjian were charged jointly with the crime of burglary with explosives. (Pen. Code, § 464.) On the first trial the jury was unable to agree on a verdict. Prior to the second trial Mural Tashjian pleaded guilty to the crime of second degree burglary. Walker was convicted in a second jury trial. He appeals from the judgment of conviction and from an order denying his motion for a new trial.

The evidence upon which appellant was convicted consisted of the testimony of his alleged accomplice, Tashjian, and certain other items of evidence tending to corroborate this testimony. The only question raised on appeal is whether the additional evidence was sufficient corroboration of the testimony of the accomplice, as required by section 1111 of the Penal Code.

The facts were as follows: About 4:30 a. m., January 12, 1953, two police officers noticed light coming from the Devonshire Inn and left their patrol car to investigate. Upon announcing themselves to those within, they saw three men run away from the rear of the premises. One of these [683]three, Mural Tashjian, was apprehended, but the other two escaped. Both officers testified that one of the two who escaped was similar in build and stature to appellant.

Examination of the premises revealed that a hole had been cut through the roof of the building, and that the lower panel of the door separating the room thus entered from a room containing two floor safes had been removed. The two safes bore marks of an acetylene torch and their tops had been partially removed. The rear door of the inn was open but the circuit of the burglar alarm had been bridged at that point by a wire with clips attached to its ends called a jumper wire. A jumper wire is a length of wire used to close breaks in electric circuits. In the area behind the inn were found a portable radio and two suitcases. The radio was found to emit only Los Angeles police calls. Among the varied items found in the suitcases were a complete oxyacetylene torch outfit in good working order, welder’s goggles, wrecking bars, an ice pick, a rubber mallet, pinhole flashlight, a saw and blades, wrenches, a rope, a cement drill, bits and another jumper wire.

On the evening of the day of the burglary, appellant registered at a hotel under a fictitious name, although his rent at his usual residence was paid about a week in advance. The following morning he was arrested as he left the hotel.