People v. Houston

Opinion

STEPHENS, Acting P. J. Defendant was charged by information with violation of Health and Safety Code section 11501 (sale of narcotics), and was also charged with a previous conviction of violation of Health and Safety Code section 11500 (possession of narcotics). Defendant pled not guilty and admitted the prior conviction.'After a jury trial, defendant was found guilty as charged. Her motions for a new trial and for reduction of the charge were denied, but her motion to withdraw the prior conviction was granted.1 On September 6, 1962, criminal proceedings were adjourned and the sheriff was ordered to file a petition pursuant to Penal Code section 6451 in order that an examination and hearing could be had to determine whether defendant was addicted to the use of narcotics, or in imminent danger of becoming so addicted. Defendant was thereafter committed to the California Rehabilitation Center. On May 6, 1969, criminal proceedings resumed. Probation was denied and defendant was sentenced to the California Institution for Women for the term prescribed by law. Defendant appeals from the judgment.

So far as is relevant to this appeal, the facts are as follows: On May 18, 1962, Primo T. Orosco, a narcotics agent for the California Department of Justice, went to the Jefferson Hotel in Los Angeles, where he met a man named Barnett (a codefendant in defendant’s trial) in the reception room of the hotel. Agent Orosco asked Barnett if he could buy two grams of [897]heroin. Barnett walked up the stairs to the second floor, where he met defendant and had a conversation with her, while Orosco remained in the reception room. Defendant then came down the stairs, walked into the reception room, handed Orosco two small capsules of heroin, and asked him for money. According to Agent Orosco, the two capsules were not inside anything else. He asked defendant how much money she wanted, and she told him six dollars. He gave her a five dollar bill and a one dollar bill, and asked her what had happened to the grams. She told him she only had caps, no grams. After Agent Orosco gave defendant the money, she walked up the stairs, met Barnett, and handed him what appeared to be the same money the agent had given her. Orosco then left the hotel and returned shortly with three more agents of the State Narcotics Bureau and a sergeant of the Los Angeles Police Department. Defendant and Barnett came down the stairs and were placed under arrest.

Defendant testified that on the day in question she was walking down the stairs of the hotel to the first floor to get some cigarettes when Barnett called to her. He said, “Mary, would you pass this package to this man?” He handed her something wrapped in a piece of paper and said, “Wait a minute. Tell that man to send me the money he owes me.” She took the package downstairs and gave it to Agent Orosco. The latter asked her, “How about the gram?” She said, “What gram?” When Orosco then said, “I want a gram,” she answered, “I don’t know nothing about no gram. You have to ask Bernard about that.” “Bernard” was the name by which defendant knew Barnett. She told Orosco that she wanted six dollars. He gave her the money, and she went back up the stairs and handed it to Barnett. She stated she did not know that the object which Barnett had given her contained narcotics, and that she would never have passed it if she had.