People v. Rich

215 P.2d 738, 96 Cal. App. 2d 579, 1950 Cal. App. LEXIS 1412
CourtCalifornia Court of Appeal
DecidedMarch 22, 1950
DocketCrim. No. 2621
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 215 P.2d 738 (People v. Rich) 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. Rich, 215 P.2d 738, 96 Cal. App. 2d 579, 1950 Cal. App. LEXIS 1412 (Cal. Ct. App. 1950).

Opinion

SCHOTTKY, J. pro tem.*

Appellant William A. Rich and John Doe were charged by indictment with a violation of section 211 of the Penal Code (robbery) alleged to have been committed on January 6, 1949, in the city and county of San Francisco. Rich further was charged with four prior felony convictions. Upon being arraigned he admitted the prior felony convictions but pleaded not guilty to the offense charged. After a trial by jury he was found guilty and sentenced to the state prison. This appeal is from the judgment of conviction and from the order denying a new trial.

On the morning of January 6, 1949, shortly after 8 o’clock, two men entered the Department of Employment Office of the State of California, then located at 1690 Mission Street, San Francisco. Mrs. Kathleen Regan, a cashier, was just about to start down the stairs from the mezzanine to her job on the first floor, previously having gone to the cashier’s cage on the mezzanine “to say hello to one of the girls,” when she was stopped by the two men. She was ordered by the taller of the two—identified on the trial as Daniel J. Mammini—-to go back. The smaller one, whom the People claimed was the defendant Rich, “pulled a gun,” and she turned around and went back toward the cashier’s cage. Mammini told her to open the door and she replied that she could not because it was locked. Mammini then put a red bandana over his face, threw a brown paper shopping bag over the top and into the approximately 7-foot-high cage, and ordered those inside to put all their money into it; he then pulled a revolver from his waistband and “told them to hurry up, that he would give them three minutes to get the money in the bag. ’ ’ Mrs. Lucille Spear, head cashier for the Department of Employment Office [581]*581and one of the four people in the cage at the time of the holdup, brought the paper bag filled with the money to the door and handed it to Mammini. Mrs. Regan had been standing outside the cage all this time and had had an opportunity to observe the smaller man in a well-lighted position. She then was told to enter the cage by Mammini, which she did. After telling them not to scream, the two men disappeared.

On the day before, January 5, Mrs. Spear, as head cashier for the Department of Employment Office, had drawn on the Bank of America three checks payable to Brink’s Armored Car Service, specifying the time of delivery and the denominations of the currency desired. Two sealed canvas sacks, one containing $10,000 and the other $20,000, were delivered by a messenger for Brink’s, who arrived at the mezzanine of the employment office at 8 a. m. on January 6 and left about 8:05 a. m. The money from the $20,000 sack was being distributed by Mrs. Spear to the various cashiers in the cage when Mammini appeared at one of the wire-screened windows or openings and ordered that it be collected and put into the paper bag, including the unopened $10,000 sack which was lying on a chair. This Mrs. Spear did. Mrs. Spear testified that approximately $26,827 was taken, as verified by state auditors immediately after the theft. Nine thousand, six hundred and twenty-two dollars had been left from the preceding day, and $13,000 was not put into the bag.

The two sacks of money which were delivered that morning by Brink’s had been obtained by them the day before from the Bank of America. Each package of currency contained 100 bills and had a band of the Federal Reserve Bank around it. The money had been counted and checked at the Federal Reserve Bank in San Francisco and a stamp put on the band around each package showing the initials of the person who had checked it.

On February 5, 1949, just after he alighted from a plane at Boeing Airport in Seattle, appellant William Rich, traveling-under the name of William Morgan, was taken into custody. He was taken to his hotel room where he was searched by the officers and on his person were found about $1,600 in currency and an ounce of narcotics; and in a suitcase in the room there were found $2,000 in currency together with a Federal Reserve Bank money wrapper bearing the initials “ A. C. L. ”

Appellant first contends that the verdict is against law and then proceeds to argue that the evidence is insufficient. [582]*582He states that Mammini pleaded guilty to the crime and testified that Rich was not the man who was with him on the robbery. He argues that the testimony of the witness Police Lieutenant Martin M. Lee to the effect that Mammini had told him Rich was in on the robbery with him was hearsay and inadmissible, and that its admission was prejudicial error. He particularly attacks the testimony of Kathleen Regan as “too indefinite and uncertain to constitute a positive identification of Rich. ’ ’ He also asserts that the money found in his possession at the time of his arrest was not identified as the money that was taken in the robbery. He attacks various other parts of the testimony and concludes by asserting that the evidence is insufficient to support the verdict.

We shall briefly summarize the evidence as shown by the record.

There is no dispute as to the details of the robbery as hereinbefore set forth. After the arrest of appellant, Kathleen Regan went to Seattle and identified him in an eight-man lineup and at the trial she testified that she was positive Rich was the smaller man who held the gun on her during the robbery. She admitted that she previously had been shown a picture of appellant and also that before she looked at the lineup in Seattle she had been told that his leg was in a east, but she insisted she had looked at his face and not at his feet. Appellant’s counsel cross-examined her at length but she insisted that at the time of the holdup she was looking straight at the man, who stood only 5 or 6 feet away from her for 4 or 5 minutes in a well-lighted room, and that he was the defendant Rich.

Lucille Spear testified that the approximately $26,827 taken that morning consisted of currency of the following denominations : the bag containing the $10,000 had in it $5,000 in $20 bills; $2,000 in $10 bills; $2,000 in $5 bills, and $1,000 in $1 bills: in the $20,000 bag, which had been opened, there had been $14,000 in $20 bills; $3,000 in $10 bills; $2,000 in $5 bills, and $1,000 in $1 bills—some of which was not taken because it was pushed into a drawer by one of the girls. The currency was in packages of 100 bills each, a paper wrapper being around each package with a stamp on it indicating the initials of the person who had checked it.

John K. Boggs, an automobile salesman employed by Dick Dubois, Incorporated, at Seattle, Washington, testified that late in the afternoon of January 10, 1949, he had a conver[583]*583sation with the appellant, who inquired about a new Hudson automobile. Rich left a deposit of $40 on a new car. He had selected a Hudson four-door sedan, the price of which was approximately $2,900. On the next day, January 11, Rich called again at the automobile agency, around 11 o ’clock, when he paid the balance of the amount, $2,870, which he paid in cash. About 80 per cent was in $20 bills and the balance in $10 bills. Rich told Boggs he was not doing anything at present; Boggs received the impression that he had sold a cigar store in California.

Robert W. Waitt, an officer with the Seattle Police Department, testified he arrested appellant at the Boeing Airport about 12:35 on February 5, 1949. He had gone there with a fellow officer, Detective Duarri. They took appellant to his room at the Vance Hotel in Seattle.

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Bluebook (online)
215 P.2d 738, 96 Cal. App. 2d 579, 1950 Cal. App. LEXIS 1412, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-rich-calctapp-1950.