People v. Wilks

DRAPEAU, J.* Kinnon Wilks, defendant in this case, was charged with receiving stolen property (Pen. Code, § 496), with grand theft, and with a prior conviction of a felony, for which he served time in the penitentiary.

In a trial in the superior court, without a jury, he was convicted by the judge of receiving stolen property, and acquitted of grand theft. The judge found that he had suffered a prior conviction of a felony and imprisonment therefor. The judge sentenced defendant to seven months in the county jail.

Defendant appeals from the judgment, and from “a denial of a new trial.” The record does not show, however, that a motion for a new trial was made, or was considered by the trial court.

Turning now to the facts in the case.

Aaron A. Berger, a plastering contractor, owned a plaster mixer that disappeared from one of his jobs.

On the day before the mixer disappeared defendant drove up to Hr. Berger’s job, and told him he had a plaster mixer he would sell him for $150; that the mixer had been hot but wasn’t any more; and that he had obtained it by taking it from a man in San Pedro who owed him wages.

The next day defendant told Mr. Richard Dill, an employee of Central Rentals that he had a plaster mixer for sale. Central Rentals owned a lot renting utility trailers for moving baggage and household goods; also trailers with equipment for industrial purposes, such as the mixer here in question.

Mr. Dill told defendant that he had no authority to buy a mixer, but that if he would come back the next day, Mr. Grady, the owner of the lot, might be interested.

The next day defendant appeared at the trailer lot, towing Mr. Berger’s mixer, with his (defendant’s) automobile. He unhooked the mixer from his car, tore off the metal serial number on the mixer, and left the mixer on the trailer lot. This aroused the suspicions of the men on the lot, and they called the police.

The next day defendant saw Mr. Grady at the trailer lot. He told Mr. Grady he would sell him the mixer for $125 (Mr. Grady testified that it was worth from $450 to $500.) Defendant also told Mr. Grady that he didn’t own the mixer; “a man owes me money, and he doesn’t know I have it.” About that time the police arrived and arrested defendant.

Mr. Berger identified the mixer as his, from a scratch with a nail that he had made on it under the hood.

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