People v. Hawk

WOOD (Parker), J. Defendants Hawk and Shirey were accused in three counts of the crime of burglary. It was alleged that the burglaries were committed on or about February 20,1958. Hawk pleaded guilty. In a trial by jury Shirey was found guilty on the three counts. Shirey appeals from the judgment and sentence.

Appellant contends that he was denied due process of law in that the court permitted “the introduction of a confession obtained as a result of (a) compulsion and duress, (b) promise of reward, immunity or lesser punishment.’’

There was ample evidence that between sundown of February 19, 1958, and sunrise of February 20, 1958, burglary was committed by breaking and entering (1) the Shrader service station, (2) the office of the Garvan Chemical Corporation, a corporation, and (3) the Flying Saucer Café. (Those places were in or near Compton.)

The owner of the café testified, among other things, that when he returned to the café at 5:20 a. m. on February 20 he found that a padlock had been broken off the door and the door was open; he looked through the window and .saw a man who was crouched by the door—the man was holding a rifle; the witness told the man to come out, but the man did not answer; then the witness went to his house (about 100 feet from the rear of the café) and telephoned the sheriff; while he (witness) was outside the café and awaiting the arrival of the officers, the man who had been crouching inside the café came up to the witness; the man, who was then carrying a rifle, said that he had heard someone yell, and he had come over to see if he could help; the witness replied that he thought the telephone booth had been broken into; the man said that the café door was open, but it should not be open; the witness entered the café; the man went away; the officers arrived within approximately 10 minutes; about 30 minutes later the officers brought the man back to the café. (The man was defendant Hawk.)

Appellant was arrested on February 20, 1958, about 7 p. m., in Wilmington.

[436]Officer Roth testified that he and Officer Vaughn had a conversation with appellant about 8 p. m. on February" 20 at the sheriff’s station; the conversation covered a period of approximately 45 minutes; the appellant’s statements were made freely and voluntarily and no promise of reward or lesser sentence was made to him and no force was used upon him; the substance of the conversation was: “We talked to Defendant Shirey and told him the information that we received from another person and showed him a statement that this other person had written out for us, and we talked several times and he denied knowledge of the claims. Later on he made admissions where he entered the service station in the company of this other individual, they broke the window, entered the station, picked up a .22 rifle, miscellaneous coin, and the screw driver. After leaving the location of the service station, they went to a chemical plant where the other person broke the window and entered the plant and Defendant Shirey stood outside with a gun in his hand. After leaving the chemical plant, they went to the Flying Saucer Café, the other person broke the lock, they both intended to enter the building, but Defendant Shirey observed a man coming from the back house and ran away and that was it, apparently, other than that Defendant Shirey stated that he had cut his hand when they went into the service station and showed me slight cut on one of his fingers.”