People v. Estrada

FILES, P. J. Defendant was charged with kidnaping for the purpose of robbery in violation of Penal Code section 209. A jury convicted him of kidnaping in violation of Penal Code section 207, a lesser and included offense. The jury found defendant to have been armed at the time of the offense. He is appealing from the judgment.

The facts may be stated simply because there is no conflict in the evidence. When a uniformed police officer approached defendant at the edge of a street in North Hollywood at about 1:30 in the afternoon, defendant pulled a revolver out of his pocket and ordered the officer to put up his hands. Defendant took the officer’s revolver, forced him into a nearby police ear and ordered, “ ‘Take me to L.A.’ ” As the officer drove, he heard shots fired from the rear seat where defendant was sitting. Then defendant struck the officer on the side of the head with his gun. The officer suddenly applied the brakes and deliberately crashed into a parked car, then leaped into the back seat and seized the two guns. With the help of three bystanders defendant was subdued. The record contains the testimony of the victim and three other persons who saw the kidnaping, and of the three who assisted [223]in defendant’s capture. Defendant offered no evidence except a record of the General Hospital to show that he “smelled of alcohol” when brought in after his arrest.

The sufficiency of the evidence is beyond question, as the defendant himself concedes. In a letter which he wrote to the trial judge after the trial, and which was included in the record on appeal at defendant’s request, he wrote:

“I was found guilty of ‘Kidnapping With a Gun’ 207 of the Penal Code by what I term an extreamly fair and impartial jury on June 19, 1964 in your courtroom. At trial I had no real defence except of the fact that I was intoxicated at the time of the commision of the crime, and also that I was beaten, other then that Im unable to say that is a real defence. I did not take the stand as I did not want to lie, and to tell the truth of the matter I can’t really remember what took place, except what Ive been told, and by the testomony given, which I cant in truth denie. I for one am glad that I was subdued by the witneses before something more drastic took place.”

The trial took place in June 1964 and was properly conducted under the law as it was set forth in the decisions of the highest courts up to that time. However, on this appeal the judgment must be reviewed in the light of the subsequent decisions in People v. Dorado, 62 Cal.2d 338 [42 Cal.Rptr. 169, 398 P.2d 361], and Griffin v. California, 380 U.S. 609 [85 S.Ct. 1229,14 L.Ed.2d 106].