People v. Harris

GRIFFIN, P. J. Defendant-appellant Paul E. Le Blanc was charged with defendant Vernon Harris with the crime of receiving stolen property, set forth in two separate counts. Harris was charged with three prior convictions and appellant with two such convictions, which he admitted. In a consolidated case each defendant was charged with the burglary of a dress shop, of which charge they were acquitted. The jury returned a verdict of guilty as to appellant on count one and guilty as to Harris on the other count of receiving stolen property. Le Blanc, in propria persona, appealed, and through his court-appointed attorney now claims, as we construe it (1) that the evidence was insufficient to convict appellant of the crime of receiving stolen property; (2) no proper venue or jurisdiction was alleged or proved; (3) no corpus delicti was established; (4) error of the court in denying appellant’s motion for an advised verdict at the conclusion of the People’s case; and (5) an erroneous instruction was given.

The evidence shows that one Dunaway, bookkeeper for B. F. Goodrich Company branch in El Centro, California, came to work early in the morning of September 22, 1957. The store had been broken into. Considerable merchandise, including a safe, was gone. An inventory was taken. A transistor radio with a specified serial number was among the property missing. All the sales tickets and contracts containing serial numbers were checked and no such radio had been sold from the store. This transistor radio ordinarily sold for $33.95. In late September, 1957, appellant came to the home of one Elizabeth Cottingham, who stated that she lived at 2050 J Street (within the city limits of San Diego); that appellant was carrying a lady’s blue suit and asked her if [472]she wanted to buy it. He claimed he and his wife had separated and he wanted some money. The price mark of $58 or $60 was attached to the garment. She paid defendant $10 and he left the suit with her. Later, he came to her home with a transistor radio and sold it to her for $10. She positively identified Le Blanc as the one who sold her these articles which she subsequently turned over to the police. The radio was later, in court, identified by her as the one sold by defendant, and Dunaway identified it by serial number as being the one missing from his store. Later, about October 2nd, when appellant was apprehended, he denied selling a suit or radio to her. About October 30th, he was again interviewed by the officers and was asked why he denied selling the radio to Mrs. Cottingham and he remarked he did not want to implicate himself or anyone else; that he received the dress from someone along Imperial Avenue who had stopped him and asked him to sell it on commission and that he found the transistor radio in his car one night; that someone had borrowed his ear (Lee Knox’s friends) and he did not notice the radio in it until later and did not know from whence it came. Appellant lived at 3030 Franklin Avenue in San Diego. On the witness stand he claimed he knew nothing about the burglary in El Centro and had never been there; that he did not know Mrs. Cottingham and did not sell her anything, and said that the first time he saw the radio was at his preliminary hearing.