People v. de Jesús Robles

92 P.R. 333
CourtSupreme Court of Puerto Rico
DecidedMay 11, 1965
DocketNos. CR-63-229 to CR-63-231
StatusPublished

This text of 92 P.R. 333 (People v. de Jesús Robles) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Puerto Rico primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
People v. de Jesús Robles, 92 P.R. 333 (prsupreme 1965).

Opinions

Mr. Justice Ramírez Bages

delivered the opinion of the Court.

Porfirio de Jesús Robles, appellant herein, was accused and convicted by the court of the offenses of burglary in the first degree (33 L.P.R.A. §§ 1591 and 1592), and violations of §§ 6 and 8 of the Weapons Law of Puerto Rico (25 L.P.R.A. §§ 416 and 418), after waiving trial by jury. He was sentenced to serve from five to ten years’ imprisonment in the penitentiary, at hard labor, for the offense of burglary, six months in jail for violation of § 6 of the Weapons Law, and from two and one-half to five years in the penitentiary, at hard labor, for violation of § 8 of that Act.

On appeal, he assigns the commission of several errors by the trial court. Mr. Stanley Feldstein, whom we designated to represent appellant, has filed a painstaking and well-reasoned brief. We discuss below those assignments.

1. “The only corroboration of the accomplice’s testimony consisted in evidence which was inadmissible because it was the fruit of an illegal search, and such evidence, even if it were admissible, was insufficient as corroboration.”

The rule for determining whether the evidence of corroboration of. an accomplice is sufficient was recently reiterated by this Court in People v. Rodríguez Hernández, 91 P.R.R. 176 (1964), as follows:

“Although the corroborative evidence should raise something more than a mere suspicion against the accused, it need not go so far as to establish by itself and without the aid of the accomplice’s testimony that the accused committed the offense charged. We have repeatedly held that corroborative evidence does not have to be direct, nor very strong, provided it is sufficient to connect the accused with the commission of the of[336]*336fense. People v. Adorno, 81 P.R.R. 504 (1959); People v. Palóu, 80 P.R.R. 351 (1958); People v. Portalatín, 72 P.R.R. 145 (1951); People v. Rosario, 68 P.R.R. 526 (1948).”

We copy below from the summary of the evidence made by the Solicitor General in his memorandum, but with certain clarifications for greater accuracy.

Witness Ángel Cruz Santana testified that the day of the occurrence José Luis Sánchez and appellant went to a bar in Cataño to fetch him and invited him to go for a ride in a green Taunus car belonging to appellant Porfirio de Jesús Robles. They drove as far as Cíales, reached Cástulo Torres’ business where they purchased cigarettes. Then they went to another place and slept in the car until eleven in the evening. Appellant woke them up and went back to the business where they had purchased the cigarettes. Appellant then said that he was going to rob the place. José Luis Sánchez and the witness took a crowbar, two screwdrivers and a master key, “broke a board in the back of the business,” went inside and took the money from the juke box, a ham, rum and Bologna sausage. While they burglarized, appellant stayed outside with a revolver watching in the car. He identified the revolver, the crowbar, the two screwdrivers and the key. All of this material was admitted in evidence without objection from the defense.

William Morales Sierra testified that on or about August 29, 1961, he was on duty as a detective in the zone of Cíales; that as a result of a number of burglaries perpetrated in that sector, he had received information from the aggrieved parties on the presence of a small yellow car. In the recent case of Cástulo Torres three individuals were suspected of having been in the burglarized business, and that according to information one of them was Porfirio de Jesús Robles who was known to the witness. Thus, on August 29 Morales Sierra saw appellant operating a Taunus car. Morales and another officer who accompanied him identified [337]*337themselves as members of the police and asked him to produce his license. Upon verifying that Porfirio was not an authorized chauffeur, they arrested him and searched his car where they found a rag paper bag containing American currency, five-cent nickels. After seizing the money, the officers took José Luis Sánchez and appellant to the police car which was parked next to' the Taunus. Officer Morales then went back to the Taunus and discovered the revolver under the rug and seized it. He further testified: “We brought him to the car and after the car was searched again, on the right-hand side . . . (interruption).” (Tr. Ev. 29.) After testifying on the discovery of the revolver, he was asked: :

“After seizing the revolver, did you find anything else in that car? —A piece of machete was then found.
“Q. What else? —Nothing else was found there.” (Tr. Ev. 31.)
Upon questioning by the defense, he said the following:
“Q. Did you search it again in the station? —We did in the station and interrogated him on other cases.
“Q. And when did you find the revolver ? —When we searched the car there . . .
“I brought him to the car and again we inspected the car.” (Tr. Ev. 33.)

He further testified that they seized in the car the tools described by witness Cruz Santana.

Then they took Sánchez and appellant to the dales station and questioned them. Porfirio de Jesús said that he had accompanied Sánchez and Cruz to Cástulo Torres’ store where the burglary had been perpetrated, and that he had kept the evidence of the case, the rum, in a house in Trujillo Alto. They went there and found the fruits of the burglaries, the boxes of rum and cigarettes, under a bed.

Cástulo Torres Hernándéz was the owner of the burglarized business. On the evening of August 27, 1961, he closed [338]*338his business around half past ten and opened it at seven in the morning. Upon investigating he noticed that several bottles of rum, the chute of the juke box, 14 pounds of coffee powder, hams, cigarettes and miscellany had been stolen. Around nine or half past nine of that evening defendant went to his business in the company of two other men. After-wards he identified Cruz Santana and José Luis Sánchez as appellant’s companions. The witness testified that they purchased cigarettes and that they were in a small gray car operated by appellant. He reported “the occurrence to the police and they went to investigate, and the next day the police came to notify me that two had been caught.”

We have no doubt that the accomplice’s testimony was fully corroborated by (a) appellant’s admission that he accompanied Cruz to Cástulo Torres’ store where the burglary had been perpetrated; (b) Cástulo Torres’ testimony placing appellant at the scene of the crime shortly before the perpetration, accompanied by the accomplice, who was identified by Torres; and (c) finding the objects stolen in the premises indicated by appellant. People v. Rodríguez Hernández, supra; People v. De Jesús, 73 P.R.R. 699 (1952).

Appellant maintains, however, that the seizure of the revolver and the tools was illegal, and, therefore, that they should not have been admitted in evidence for the purpose of establishing the violations of §§.6 and 8 of the Weapons Law, and, consequently, that appellant’s admissions are inadmissible since they were obtained by confrontation with evidence illegally obtained.. It is argued that according to the doctrine which we enunciated in People v. Sosa Díaz,

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Bluebook (online)
92 P.R. 333, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-de-jesus-robles-prsupreme-1965.