People v. Slobodion

191 P.2d 1, 31 Cal. 2d 555, 1948 Cal. LEXIS 337
CourtCalifornia Supreme Court
DecidedMarch 23, 1948
DocketCrim. 4857
StatusPublished
Cited by128 cases

This text of 191 P.2d 1 (People v. Slobodion) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering California Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
People v. Slobodion, 191 P.2d 1, 31 Cal. 2d 555, 1948 Cal. LEXIS 337 (Cal. 1948).

Opinion

*557 TRAYNOR, J.

Defendant was charged in two counts of an information alleging (1) a violation of Penal Code, section 288, which defines lewd and lascivious conduct against a child under 14 years of age, and (2) a violation of Penal Code, section 288a, which defines a form of sex perversion. In the first count defendant was charged with placing his “hands and private parts upon the bare body and private parts” of the prosecutrix, a 6-year-old girl; in the second count he was charged with “copulating the mouth” of defendant with “the sexual organ” of the prosecutrix. The defense contended at the trial that if the acts complained of actually occurred, the prosecutrix erroneously identified defendant as the wrongdoer. Defendant was convicted on each count and was given concurrent sentences. He appeals from the judgment of conviction and from the order denying a new trial.

Defendant contends that the evidence was insufficient to support the verdict. As usually happens, the testimony of the prosecutrix was for the most part uncorroborated. She could not remember the date when the offenses were committed, but other witnesses established that the date was September 15, 1945. On that day, according to the prosecutrix, defendant persuaded her to accompany him to an abandoned house less than a block from her home. A room in the house contained a bed and table. Defendant removed a bottle of whiskey from his pocket and took off some of the prosecutrix’s clothing as well as his own. Defendant then put the child on the bed. He put his private parts into her private parts and then put his mouth to her private parts. He then sat her on the table and repeated the foregoing acts. Defendant allowed the child to return home after she twice requested him to let her go. Before defendant took her into the house, and again while they were inside, he told the prosecutrix that he would get her an ice cream cone.

A boatswain in the Coast Guard and his wife occupied rooms in the prosecutrix’s home. The boatswain arrived home that afternoon at about 2:30 p. m. and heard the prosecutrix complaining to his wife that someone had done something “bad to her.” Shortly thereafter, the prosecutrix saw defendant walking alongside her home with an ice cream cone in his hand. She pointed the man out to the boatswain, who went outside and asked defendant if he had taken the child into the abandoned house. Defendant replied that he had not, but stated that he had asked her if she wanted an ice cream *558 cone. During the conversation defendant offered the boatswain a drink from a bottle of whiskey.

Defendant testified in his own behalf, stating that at the time of the alleged offenses he had been in a saloon. After drinking some beer he proceeded to his home, situated near that of the prosecutrix. Defendant testified that on the way home he purchased a bottle of whiskey and an ice cream cone. The ice cream was for his landlord’s grandchild. Defendant stated that he “always brought something home” for the child. As defendant walked by the prosecutrix’s house, the boatswain asked defendant for the ice cream. Defendant offered the boatswain a drink of whiskey but the boatswain wanted the ice cream, saying ‘ ‘ I want to take it in and give it to a child.” Defendant replied, “That is what I got it for, a child.” Nevertheless, the boatswain took the ice cream from defendant.

Defendant contends that the evidence is insufficient to support the verdict, on the ground that the testimony of the prosecutrix is “so vague, uncertain and contradictory as to clearly indicate her inability to accurately remember and relate facts, and by reason. thereof her testimony is not worthy of belief.” As illustrative of his contention, defendant points to the prosecutrix’s testimony that there are 12 days in a week; that the incidents complained of occurred in November or December, whereas they actually occurred in September; and that the man who committed the acts was smaller than her father, whereas prosecutrix’s father weighs about 80 pounds less than defendant. Defendant considers the prosecutrix’s testimony impeached by her statements during cross-examination that defendant wore a red necktie, whereas she testified at the preliminary examination that she did not think he wore a necktie. Defendant also contends that the prosecutrix was coached on the grounds that three persons (presumably one or two police officers and a representative of the district attorney) helped her “remember her story” and that she testified that she knew the incidents occurred on a Saturday because her mother told her so.

In all its important phases, the prosecutrix’s story is coherent and consistent. Her version of the incident remained unimpeached in all its essentials on cross-examination. She declared unequivocally that her mother did not tell her what to say. The statement by the prosecutrix that about three persons helped her “remember her story” was in the form of an affirmative response to a question put by defendant on *559 cross-examination. A reading of the entire record does not reveal instances of coaching, except in the use of the words “private parts” by the child. The defendant could show no more than that the prosecutrix had discussed the affair with several persons in authority. Since the testimony of the prosecutrix was, so far as the record shows, worthy of belief, minor inconsistencies not destructive of her story were for the jury to pass upon.

Defendant contends that evidence prejudicial to the defendant was erroneously admitted. A police officer testified that on September 15th, the day of the offense, he was taken by the prosecutrix to the abandoned house where the child showed him how “she entered the house with the man, unknown to us at that time, and showed us where he had set her on the table and also where he had laid her on the couch in the kitchen.” Defendant contends that this testimony, even if considered as a “fresh complaint,” went too far in that it contained the details of the complaint, instead of the fact of complaint and nothing more, and that it was inadmissible hearsay. Defendant, however, did not object to the admission of the foregoing evidence, and it would be technical in the extreme to hold that the officer’s repetition of the child’s statement in this case was anything but a minor incident in the trial, without importance when the record is read in its entirety.

Defendant contends that the admission of evidence pertaining to certain non judicial identification of defendant was erroneous. The prosecutrix testified that she identified defendant in a police lineup, and a police officer testified that he was present when the prosecutrix made the identification. Here again, defendant made no objection to the introduction of the testimony of which he now complains, but even if he had this evidence of previous nonjudicial identification would have been admissible.

‘ ‘ Ordinarily, when a witness is asked to identify the assailant, or thief, or other person who is the subject of his testimony, the witness’ act of pointing out the accused (or other person), then and there in the courtroom, is of little testimonial force. After all that has intervened, it would seldom happen that the witness would not have come to believe in the person’s identity. The failure to recognize would tell for the accused; but the affirmative recognition might mean little against him.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
191 P.2d 1, 31 Cal. 2d 555, 1948 Cal. LEXIS 337, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-slobodion-cal-1948.