People v. Matthews

264 Cal. App. 2d 557, 70 Cal. Rptr. 756, 1968 Cal. App. LEXIS 2118
CourtCalifornia Court of Appeal
DecidedJuly 31, 1968
DocketCrim. 13010
StatusPublished
Cited by16 cases

This text of 264 Cal. App. 2d 557 (People v. Matthews) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering California Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
People v. Matthews, 264 Cal. App. 2d 557, 70 Cal. Rptr. 756, 1968 Cal. App. LEXIS 2118 (Cal. Ct. App. 1968).

Opinion

COBEY, J.

This is an appeal, following a nonjury trial, from a judgment of conviction of burglary of the second degree in which probation was granted and from an order denying a new trial.* 1 Such order is not appealable as such, but will be reviewed herein. (Pen. Code, § 1237, subd. 1.)

*560 The grounds for appeal are essentially that (1) the evidence of appellant’s concomitant intent to commit larceny or any felony was insubstantial; (2) his extrajudicial, highly incriminating statement to the police was improperly admitted in evidence to his prejudice. We reverse solely upon the second stated ground.

I. The Facts

On May 25, 1966, at 3:20 a.m., Mrs. Rosalee Frances McLean was awakened by an intruder in her bedroom in the apartment she shared with her husband in Long Beach. The intruder was appellant, Boy Bdric Matthews, a career Navy enlisted man. Mrs. McLean screamed, appellant grabbed her by the throat but she managed to rise up in bed and start screaming for her husband. Appellant released his hold and fled through the well-lighted living room with Mrs. McLean in pursuit still screaming for her husband. Appellant ran into the kitchen from whence he escaped through a window above a sink. This window was the only means of external access to the apartment aside from the front door which had been chain-locked. Nothing was taken or missing from the apartment.

At approximately 4 a.m. that same morning two Long Beach police officers, searching for a prowler, observed appellant lying under a parked car in an alley a half block away from Mrs. McLean’s apartment. One of them shined his flashlight directly into appellant’s closed eyes and the other told him two or three times to get up. When appellant failed to do so but flinched his eyes, the two policemen, with the help of others who had joined them, lifted appellant out from under the car and stood him up in the middle of the adjoining backyard. At 4:10 a.m. another police officer advised appellant of his constitutional rights as required by People v. Dorado, 62 Cal.2d 338, 353-354 [42 Cal.Rptr. 169, 398 P.2d 361],* 2 and placed him under arrest for burglary. Appellant was then apparently placed in jail.

During the next 30 hours or so, appellant was taken once and possibly twice from the holding tank to a Long Beach *561 police interrogation room to be questioned. The sole reported interrogation during this interval of time was conducted by Inspector Bennett in the presence of Sergeant Johnson. It lasted approximately 10 minutes. Appellant was advised of his constitutional rights along the lines of the requirements of Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 [16 L.Ed. 2d 694, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 10 A.L.R.3d 974], by Inspector Bennett who also had appellant repeat that advice to make sure he understood it. 3 “ Bennett then asked appellant whether he understood these rights, as Bennett had told him of them previously. Appellant replied that Bennett had not. Bennett became “rather hot about it” and commented “You have to get up early in the morning to fool me” or something like that. .Appellant said he had been “brutalized.” The two police officers told appellant to take off his clothing from the waist up. They inspected the exposed half of his body, particularly his back, about which they questioned him. Bennett then asked appellant, in a way which appellant regarded as insinuating his guilt, what had happened at the McLean apartment. Appellant would not talk and was therefore returned to the holding tank.

About 11 a.m. the next day, appellant was taken by the aforementioned Sergeant Johnson from the holding facility in the courthouse to the courtroom of Municipal Judge Lilley for arraignment. While waiting in the jury box following his arraignment appellant motioned Sergeant Johnson over and said, “I would like to clear things up,” or something like that. Johnson told appellant to wait until court was over.

Appellant was arraigned before Judge Lilley in the presence and hearing of, among others, Sergeant Johnson. He was without counsel and the judge appointed the public defender to represent him. The judge also advised appellant of certain of his constitutional rights relating to his forthcoming trial. 4

Immediately after the arraignment and without any consultation with his just-appointed counsel, appellant was taken by Sergeant Johnson to the police station across the street. There he gave Sergeant Johnson and a police secretary a five- *562 page statement, in question and answer form, which subsequently was introduced into evidence over objection as People ’s Exhibit No. 3. 5 After this statement had been typed up it was taken back to appellant in the holding tank to read and sign, page by page, which he did in the presence of Sergeant *563 Johnson and a Navy chief petty officer who was the liaison between the Navy and the Long Beach police and' who was requested by Sergeant Johnson to witness appellant’s signatures.

*564 In the statement, appellant admitted that he had entered the McLean apartment through the torn screen of the kitchen window after having drunk a pint of whiskey and some beer earlier that night; that he did not know why he did so, that he continued through the house into a bedroom where a person awakened whom he attempted to quiet unsuccessfully, that he then fled but returned to the vicinity of the apartment looking for a pair of glasses which he had lost, that he saw the *565 police and then dozed off and was subsequently awakened by them. The deputy public defender objected to the admission of this statement on the ground that the People had not shown an effective waiver by appellant of his right to counsel before he made the statement.

II. The Question op Appellant’s Felonious Intent.

Turning to appellant’s first contention on appeal, that the evidence of his felonious intent in entering the McLean apartment is insubstantial, we find it to be without merit. Appellant claims that he was so intoxicated that he did not know what he was doing when he climbed into the kitchen window. It is true that appellant had consumed a pint of whiskey and some beer during the evening hours before he was discovered in Mrs. McLean’s bedroom and that a breathalyzer test by the police shortly after his arrest showed that the alcohol content of his blood was then .10. Moreover, appellant testified that he was intoxicated when he entered the apartment and did so without intent to commit larceny or rape. But one of the arresting officers testified that in his opinion, appellant was not drunk at the time of his arrest.

Related

People v. Franzen
210 Cal. App. 4th 1193 (California Court of Appeal, 2012)
People v. Ray
914 P.2d 846 (California Supreme Court, 1996)
People v. McGowan
105 Cal. App. 3d 997 (California Court of Appeal, 1980)
People v. Johnson
32 Cal. App. 3d 988 (California Court of Appeal, 1973)
People v. Brockman
2 Cal. App. 3d 1002 (California Court of Appeal, 1969)
People v. Jarvis
276 Cal. App. 2d 446 (California Court of Appeal, 1969)
People v. Sunday
275 Cal. App. 2d 473 (California Court of Appeal, 1969)
People v. Connor
270 Cal. App. 2d 630 (California Court of Appeal, 1969)
People v. Johnson
450 P.2d 865 (California Supreme Court, 1969)
People v. Isby
267 Cal. App. 2d 484 (California Court of Appeal, 1968)

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Bluebook (online)
264 Cal. App. 2d 557, 70 Cal. Rptr. 756, 1968 Cal. App. LEXIS 2118, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-matthews-calctapp-1968.