People v. Powell

236 P. 311, 71 Cal. App. 500, 1925 Cal. App. LEXIS 581
CourtCalifornia Court of Appeal
DecidedMarch 4, 1925
DocketDocket No. 814.
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 236 P. 311 (People v. Powell) 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. Powell, 236 P. 311, 71 Cal. App. 500, 1925 Cal. App. LEXIS 581 (Cal. Ct. App. 1925).

Opinion

HART, J.

defendants were jointly charged with and tried for and convicted of the crime of criminal syndicalism in the superior court of Plumboldt County. Each made a motion for a new trial and the same was denied and each appeals from the judgment of conviction and the order denying him a new trial.

The offense with which the accused are charged and of which they were convicted is that so denounced by subdivision 4 of section 2 of the Criminal Syndicalism Act (Stats. 1919, p. 281), which makes it a felony for any person to inaugurate or assist in inaugurating, or is or knowingly becomes a member of, any organization, society, group, or assemblage of persons, organized or assembled to advocate, teach, or aid and abet criminal syndicalism, as that crime is defined by section 1 of that act.

Seven of the defendants were, on the fourteenth day of October, 1923, arrested by the sheriff of Humboldt County, assisted by several deputies, in a room in a building designated and known as “218 D Street,” in the city of Eureka, in said county. The defendants so arrested were Powell, Bryan, McRae, Allen, French, Taylor, and Beavert. The defendant Nicholson was arrested at a subsequent time at some other place in Humboldt County. Longstrath was arrested in the latter part of October, 1923, on a date subsequent to the day on which the seven defendants above named were arrested. He was found by the officers with another man, who was not arrested, temporarily camping on Trinidad beach, in Humboldt County.

The seven defendants first above named, upon being arrested, were taken to the county jail in Eureka, there searched by the officers and from the person of each, with the exception of Beavert, was taken a membership card of the Industrial Workers of the World, and from the posses *504 sion of some of them there were also taken certain “credentials” purporting to have been issued by said organization and to confer upon them the authority to discharge certain duties in connection with the promotion of the aims of the organization.

In the opening brief of counsel for the defendants it is expressly conceded that the evidence sufficiently shows that the defendants Powell, Nicholson, and Longstrath were members of the Industrial Workers of the World. As to the defendants Bryan, Taylor, Allen, French, McRae, and Beavert, however, it is contended that the evidence is insufficient to support the finding of the jury that they were members of said organization. This contention, as to all of these defendants, except Beavert, is predicated upon the proposition that, while membership cards and (from some) delegate credentials bearing the names and signatures of said defendants and signed and issued by the general secretary of the I. W. W. were taken from their persons by the officers at the county jail, at the time of their arrest, the officers, when testifying, were unable to name the particular defendant from whom a particular card or particular credentials were taken. To be more explicit: A membership card was taken from the possession of each of the defendants, bearing his name and signature, but the officers, save in one or two instances, were not able to state on the witness-stand, from their own independent recollection, from which of the defendants the particular card or credentials were taken. The objection is without substantial merit. The names on the several cards and credentials, as seen, correspond with the names of the defendants, and it was for the jury to determine whether the cards, etc., were issued respectively to the defendants whose names they bore. It was but a natural inference, under the circumstances, that a card bearing the name of any one of the defendants was taken from the possession of that particular defendant and not from that of some other defendant of a different name. The cards and credentials constituted sufficient evidence to warrant the jury in concluding that the five defendants referred to were members of the organization, and further in finding that said defendants had knowledge of the principles, the doctrines, the *505 purposes and the policies of the organization. (People v. Flanagan, 65 Cal. App. 268 [223 Pac. 1014].)

Upon the person of the defendant Beavert a membership card was not found, but it was shown that he was arrested at the local headquarters of the organization in Eureka with the other defendants while they were sitting at a table upon which there were at the time certain documents or writings, purporting to be the minutes of a meeting of the local branch and a record of the activities of certain members of the organization. In the writings purporting to be the minutes or record of the proceedings of certain meetings of the local branch, the name of the defendant, Beavert, appeared in connection with his appointment to the membership of the “committee on resolutions,” and also as a member of the “Leaflet committee”; that he was a duly appointed traveling delegate of the organization or the local branch thereof, and had issued credentials to another member authorizing him to accept applications for membership of the local branch and to collect dues, etc. To these significant circumstances may be added these considerations : That there was no denial, at the time of the arrest of the defendants at No. 218 D Street, that said place, if not the permanent, was the temporary headquarters or office of the local wing of the I. W. W. organization. Moreover, it was conceded that the literature in various forms found at the said place at the time of the arrest of several of the defendants, including Beavert, was printed and published by and under the authority of the I. W. W. There was no denial at any time that the book or writing or document containing the name of Beavert and reciting that he had been appointed as a member of a committee of the organization of the local branch thereof was not what it purported to be, to wit: the minutes or record of the proceedings of some meeting of the local branch .of the organization. It was proved, if, indeed, not virtually conceded, that Henry Powell, who was in charge of the place when Beavert and certain other defendants were arrested, was the secretary of the local branch of the organization. There was no attempt to deny that the defendants, other than Beavert, arrested at 218 D Street, were members of the I. W. W. Thus it is clear that there were brought before the jury *506 circumstances and other considerations from which the jury were well justified in drawing the conclusion that Beavert was a member of the organization in question. It is argued, however, that, to constitute the writings referred to as com•petent evidence of Beavert’s membership of the organization, proof must first be made that said writings were the official minutes of any meeting the proceedings of which they purported to contain the record of. 'These writings or minutes were signed by “Henry Powell, Sec’y Br.,” and it is admitted that that was shown to be the signature of Powell, one of the defendants and secretary of the Eureka branch of the organization. This was a sufficient showing that said writings were the official minutes or record of certain meetings of the local branch of the organization to make them prima facie

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Bluebook (online)
236 P. 311, 71 Cal. App. 500, 1925 Cal. App. LEXIS 581, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-powell-calctapp-1925.