People v. Sanderson

SHINN, P. J. Appellant and his codefendant Sanderson were charged with robbery, and with being armed with a deadly weapon both at the time of the commission of the offense and at the time of arrest. Appellant was also charged with a prior felony conviction of robbery. The codefendant pleaded guilty to the charge of armed robbery. Appellant pleaded not guilty and admitted the prior felony conviction. A jury found appellant guilty of robbery in the first degree and that he was armed at the time of his arrest. Appellant’s application for a new trial was denied; however, the court struck the finding that appellant was armed at the time of his arrest. The appeal is from the judgment and an order denying a new trial.

Appellant was driving his automobile with Sanderson as a passenger; he parked in front of a liquor store with his engine running, and waited while Sanderson went into the liquor store. Sanderson, while armed, robbed the store, walked out to appellant’s ear and they drove away. Officer Nudd noticed the odd way in which appellant was driving and followed him. After being informed about the robbery and the [722]get-away ear, the officer suspected that the appellant’s car was the one used in the robbery, and arrested both of its occupants.

The first contention to be noticed is that the evidence was insufficient to justify the verdict. Appellant testified that he did not know that Sanderson was going to rob the store or that the latter was armed. Sanderson corroborated appellant’s testimony. We have concluded that the jury was justified in believing that the circumstances in evidence overcame appellant’s denials of guilty knowledge.

There was no doubt as to the circumstances of the robbery. Appellant sat in a car while Sanderson robbed the store. Officer Nudd testified that his attention was first directed to the car driven by appellant when it made a sharp turn at an intersection, drove over a portion of the sidewalk and broke into the line of traffic; that appellant changed lanes three times without exercising caution and was crowding the cars in front of him; he followed appellant’s car for ten blocks; the erratic manner in which the car was being driven attracted the officer’s attention; he signaled for other cars; appellant’s car was overtaken and the two occupants were arrested. The car was searched; underneath the passenger’s seat was found a .32 caliber automatic and in a glove compartment a box containing 44 rounds of ammunition for the gun. There was also a part of a bottle of wine and a part of a flask of whiskey. In his testimony Sanderson claimed that the gun and ammunition were his and that Wollman had not seen either of them. Appellant at all times denied having participated in the robbery. It was testified by the officers that in the station appellant said “ ‘there was just one little old officer with one little old gun. If we had wanted to, we could have shot him. . . .’ ” Appellant admitted that he had made the statement and added that he also said that they (the officers) had no shotgun and if he had done anything he could have shot it out with the officers and had a 50-50 chance of getting away.