People v. Klavon

202 Cal. App. 2d 765, 21 Cal. Rptr. 99, 1962 Cal. App. LEXIS 2542
California Court of Appeal·Decided April 25, 1962·No. Crim. 4060·Published·Cited by 4 cases

Opinion

SULLIVAN, J.

Appellant Richard Gus Klavon, Everett Prank Hamm and Manuel Joseph Corpio Perez were jointly charged in an information with burglary. In the second count Hamm, alone, was charged with the unlawful possession of marijuana in violation of section 11530 of the Health and Safety Code. On the burglary count, a jury found Klavon guilty but found Hamm and Perez not guilty. Hamm was found guilty on the second count. The record discloses no proceedings for a new trial. Klavon alone has appealed from the judgment of conviction.

The sole contention on appeal made by appellant through court appointed counsel is that the prosecutor committed prejudicial misconduct at the trial. Appellant does not question the sufficiency of the evidence to support the judgment.

Late in the evening of March 25, 1961, Klavon, after getting off work, met Hamm at the latter’s house in Hayward. According to appellant, he and Hamm “decided to get a couple of beers,” went riding around in Klavon’s car and finally reached Russell City. According to Hamm’s testimony, they went to Russell City to “score,” jargon for making a purchase of narcotics. At Russell City, while sitting in Klavon’s car, they met Perez, who was known to Hamm but not to Klavon. Perez told them that he knew someone in Pleasanton who had marijuana. The three men in Perez’ ear drove to Pleasanton *767 and went to the apartment of one Jack Scott. They had beer in the car which they drank before they started and during the trip.

Perez and Klavon left Hamm in the car and went to the doorway of Scott’s apartment. The door was partially open and there were lights on inside. Perez called out Scott’s name and receiving no answer, the two men pushed the door open and entered the apartment. Klavon then went back to the car and returned with Hamm. According to Klavon, Perez stated “ ‘I wonder if it’s here?’ ” and Perez and Hamm thereupon started searching through drawers in the kitchen. Appellant then left the room and, when he returned, Hamm had apparently gone to the car. He testified that he then returned to the car, without taking anything from the apartment and without seeing either of the others do so. According to Hamm, however, appellant returned with a radio and “an armful of stuff” and put them in Perez’ car.

The three men then drove off but because of Perez’ erratic driving were stopped by the Pleasanton police who found in the car two portable radios, groceries, an electric iron, a camera flashbulb attachment, a butcher knife and an alarm clock. One of the radios and all of the other articles were identified by Scott as the articles taken from his apartment. He also stated that he had not given any of the three men permission to enter the apartment.

Appellant cites a number of instances which he claims constitute misconduct of the prosecutor and which he presents to us in two categories: (1) Those showing “Abuse of Trial Mechanics”; and (2) those showing “Systematic Distortion of Purpose of Evidence.” In each category, appellant groups a number of instances, furnishes bare references to the record and adds parenthetical remarks pertinent thereto. 1

We take up those instances charged in the first category. At the very beginning of the cross-examination of Klavon by the prosecutor, appellant’s counsel who is not his counsel on this appeal, objected after the third question that the prosecutor was asking the questions too fast. There was no ruling by the court and no repetition of the matter in the portion of the transcript referred to. We find no error or misconduct in the incident. We are referred to a portion of the cross-examination of Perez by the prosecutor, during which counsel *768 for appellant objected to what appears to us to be a slight rephrasing of Perez’ answers. However, the court sustained these objections and admonished the jury to keep in mind the distinction between what the prosecutor said and what the witness Perez had said. This incident to us seems trivial but if there was any resultant impropriety, it was certainly corrected by the court’s action.

We have carefully examined all other portions of the record to which appellant refers us in support of his claim that there was an “abuse of trial mechanics” constituting misconduct and find that appellant made no objections to any conduct of the prosecutor embraced therein. It is well settled that where no objection, exception or assignment of error is made in the trial court, the claim of misconduct of the district attorney cannot be raised for the first time on appeal. (People v. Wein (1958) 50 Cal.2d 383, 396 [326 P.2d 457]; People v. Hampton (1956) 47 Cal.2d 239, 241 [302 P.2d 300]; People v. Byrd (1954) 42 Cal.2d 200, 208 [266 P.2d 505]; People v. Codina (1947) 30 Cal.2d 356, 362 [181 P.2d 881].)

We next consider the second category, denominated, as we have pointed out above, “systematic distortion of purpose of evidence.” This consists of two groups of acts of alleged misconduct, which we take up separately.

In the first group, appellant cites ten instances of alleged misconduct of the district attorney during his cross-examination of Klavon (not counting one instance where appellant’s objection was sustained) and two instances during the cross-examination of Perez. The major claim of misconduct underlying all these is that appellant, although on trial for burglary, was prejudiced in the eyes of the jury by a continuous cross-examination by the prosecutor on matters relating to narcotics, thus creating the impression that he was a man involved in the dope traffic. Augmenting this prejudicial misconduct, and as an integral part of it, so appellant argues, was the repetitious use in the interrogation of the word “score.”

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People v. Klavon, 202 Cal. App. 2d 765, 21 Cal. Rptr. 99, 1962 Cal. App. LEXIS 2542 (Cal. Ct. App. 1962).

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