People v. Bright

FOURT, J. This is an appeal from a judgment of conviction for a violation of the provisions of section 459 of the Penal Code (burglary).

In an information filed in Los Angeles County, the defendant was charged with two counts of burglary, and further, in each count it was set forth that the defendant had been previously convicted of the crime of burglary and served a term in the state prison therefor. From the judgment of conviction of count I the defendant appeals.

The defendant was represented by counsel at the preliminary hearing. At the trial in the superior court, where the defendant was also represented by counsel, it was stipulated in substance that a trial by jury was waived and the matter was to be heard by the court without a jury, and the plaintiff’s case in chief to be submitted upon the transcript of the testimony taken at the preliminary hearing and further that each side reserved the right to produce additional evidence if either so desired.

The facts as elicited from the record are substantially as follows: On or about May 15, 1956, a Lawrence G. Robinson resided in a room of a hotel located on Wall Street in Los Angeles. The room Robinson occupied was on the second floor and had one outside window which could be entered from a ledge on the outside of the building. The same ledge apparently projected to a point below the bathroom window. When Robinson would leave his room it was locked by means of a hasp and padlock from the outside, and on the day in question, when Robinson left his facility to go to work he locked the door in the usual fashion. That morning, after Robinson had left for work, one of the roomers in the hotel heard a noise in Robinson’s room and noticing that the door was padlocked, went to the bathroom close by Robinson’s room to attempt to see into that room from the bathroom window for the purposes of ascertaining what the cause of the noise was, and finding the bathroom locked, the roomer went to the porter of the hotel and advised him of what he [589]had heard and found. The porter and the roomer returned to the bathroom and “pushed the door open and caught the guy with the clothes,” referring to the defendant. Robinson identified a suitcase and a considerable number of pieces of wearing apparel, found in the possession of the defendant under the circumstances related, as belonging to him and which were in his room when he left for work earlier in the day. The defendant, upon being confronted in the bathroom with the suitcase and the wearing apparel of Robinson, took flight, but was caught by the porter.