People v. Jackson

ROTH, P. J. Appellant was found guilty, in a nonjury trial, of violating Penal Code, section 459. He appeals from the judgment.

On February 22, 1964, at approximately 9:30 p.m., several police units acting in response to a radio call, converged on a residence located on Denker Avenue in Los Angeles to inves[792]tigate a possible burglary. Officer Irwin, while still one block from the residence, noticed three or four males in the driveway of the house. As Irwin’s police car neared the house, he saw appellant walking across the lawn to the sidewalk and observed another man step behind a pillar bordering the driveway. When Irwin and his partner parked their car, they apprehended appellant and the man standing behind the pillar.

The officers noticed several items of personal property on the porch of the house including a suit and a vacuum cleaner. In appellant’s pants pocket the officers found various items of men’s underclothing and cufflinks later identified as having been taken from the house. Approximately $200 in cash was also taken from the residence. Of this $170 was recovered.

At the time of his apprehension, the officers asked appellant to explain his presence at the house and appellant related that he had been picked up by the other men in their car; that they had then driven around for a while before stopping at the Denker Avenue residence, and that appellant did not know they were going to stop at the house, but that when they did stop, three of the other men entered the house and brought out various items, some of which were given to appellant. Someone then yelled that the police were coming and everyone started running except appellant who, since he had not done anything, merely walked toward the sidewalk.

Two days after his arrest, appellant was interrogated by Officer Broady in an interrogation room at the 77th street police station. Broady asked appellant to tell him what happened the night he was arrested. Broady testified, “At that time I said, ‘Well, tell me everything you did and just start from the beginning.’ ” Appellant then confessed that the group of men had gone to the Denker Avenue residence, after first trying a house on another street, for the express purpose of obtaining money; that when they arrived, one of the men found that no one was home and that one of the windows was open, then the men, including appellant, went into the house and rummaged the house. On the way out someone said “Here come the cops”, and they all fled in different directions.