People v. Caldwell

FILES, P. J. After a court trial defendant was convicted of forgery (Pen. Code, § 470) and he has appealed from the judgment.1 We have concluded that the judgment must be reversed because defendant’s connection with the offense was shown only by the testimony of an accomplice who was not corroborated as Penal Code section 1111 requires.2

Mrs. McCoy, aged 15, testified in substance as follows: Defendant gave her a county warrant payable to Rozalia Limon, in the sum of $165, and told her he wanted her to cash it. Another man, in defendant’s presence, gave her an unsigned [196]temporary driver’s license. Upon defendant’s instruction she signed the name Rozalia Limón on this license. Defendant then drove the witness to a market, where she tried without success to cash the warrant. Then defendant took her to a furniture store. The two of them entered. Defendant told her he would purchase a cheap lamp.

When the clerk approached the witness she told him she wanted a lamp and asked if he would cash her check. She showed the clerk the check, which she had already indorsed with the name of Rozalia Limon, and the driver's license for identification. The clerk said he would cash it, and invited her to the back room. Then the police came.

Rozalia Limón testified that she had never given anyone permission to indorse the check.

Ray L. Stiles, the credit manager at the furniture store, was the only witness other than Mrs. McCoy to involve defendant. After identifying Mrs. McCoy as the person who had presented the forged check to him, he gave this testimony:

“Q. Was anyone else with her at that time?

“A. I saw two people come into the store. I couldn’t really tell who it was. I knew they was messing around, you know, looking around, browsing around, and then after the police department came I saw who it was. It was the person over there.

“The Court: Indicating the defendant, sitting at the counsel table ?

“The Witness: Yes, sir.”

The application of the statutory rule is explained in People v. Luker, 63 Cal.2d 464, 469 [47 Cal.Rptr. 209, 407 P.2d 9] : “In order to corroborate the testimony of an accomplice the prosecution must introduce independent evidence which of itself connects the defendant with the crime without any aid from the testimony of the accomplice. The amount and type of evidence necessary to produce such corroboration obviously differs according to the circumstances of each case. [Fn. omitted.] As we recently stated in People v. Holford (1965) ante, pp. 74, 82 [45 Cal.Rptr. 167, 403 P.2d 423], ‘The evidence required for corroboration of an accomplice “need not corroborate the accomplice as to every fact to which he testifies but is sufficient if it does not require interpretation and direction from the testimony of the accomplice yet tends to connect the defendant with the commission of the offense in such a way as reasonably may satisfy a jury that the accomplice is telling the truth; it must tend to implicate the defendant and therefore must relate to some act or fact which is- an element