People v. Sullivan

271 Cal. App. 2d 531, 77 Cal. Rptr. 25, 1969 Cal. App. LEXIS 2409
CourtCalifornia Court of Appeal
DecidedApril 7, 1969
DocketCrim. 2982
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 271 Cal. App. 2d 531 (People v. Sullivan) 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. Sullivan, 271 Cal. App. 2d 531, 77 Cal. Rptr. 25, 1969 Cal. App. LEXIS 2409 (Cal. Ct. App. 1969).

Opinion

WHELAN, J.

Defendant appeals from a judgment imposing a prison sentence for burglary in the first degree as fixed by a verdict that also found defendant to have been armed with a deadly weapon at the time; pronouncement of judgment on a conviction of assault with a deadly weapon arising out of the same incident was withheld.

Evidence

On March 24, 1967, Paul Blake, with a companion, entered Anthony’s Fish Grotto in La Mesa after the establishment had closed for the night. Blake’s purpose was to get any money he might find in a gambling game he believed was going on.

The two men entered a dressing room in the establishment where five of the kitchen help were playing poker. A one dollar bill and some quarters were in view. Blake entered first, armed with a small, double-barreled derringer pistol; his companion behind him armed with a dark-colored Luger automatic pistol. The five employees were told to get on their hands and knees on the floor; Blake’s companion showed how that should be done, said, “I’m not fooling,” and manipulated the pistol so that an empty shell was ejected, which Blake picked up.

The two men left without taking any money or other property after Blake’s companion had entered and come out from an adjoining room. In leaving, they attempted to secure the door from the outside, but the five men within finally opened it and reported the matter to the police.

*536 The police stopped a car, in which were two men, but the employees of the restaurant said that neither of the men in the ear was one of the gunmen.

Three of the five employees of Anthony’s Fish Grotto in court identified defendant as the man who wielded the Luger. Each, separately, had, before defendant was taken into custody, selected, from among several photographs shown to the witnesses by the police, defendant’s photograph as that of the man with the black pistol. After defendant was arrested, the three kitchen helpers, on May 4, 1967, picked him out in a lineup of six men as the wielder of the black pistol.

The trial commenced on August 31, 1967. On August 29, 1967, O’Brien, the investigating police detective, received information from a lawyer named Hegner that Hegner had obtained possession, through a claim check received from a client, of a box containing several handguns, among them a Luger. The Luger had found its way into the shop of a gun dealer, who had sold it to a man in Phoenix, Arizona, and placed it with American Express Company for carriage to the purchaser. When O’Brien talked to the dealer, the weapon was in transit from the shop of the dealer to the office of the express company. The dealer authorized O’Brien to retrieve the gun from the express company which O’Brien did. The three kitchen helpers said that the weapon so obtained was .similar to that displayed to them by defendant.

Hegner found in the box containing the Luger two other pistols, one a derringer recognized by the three kitchen helpers as similar to the weapon held by Blake. He found in the box also a number of papers, including receipts, bearing defendant’s name. Hegner had not seen defendant before he saw him in court when Hegner testified. Defendant was not the client for whom Hegner had obtained the box at a storage place and who had given the box and its contents to Hegner. Hegner did not give the name of his client, the court having ruled that he need not do so.

Contentions on Appeal

Defendant states his contentions on appeal as follows:

‘ ‘ Point' I: It- was error for the prosecuting attorney to call Paul Blake to testify.
“Point II: It was error for the prosecuting attorney to comment on Paul Blake’s refusal to answer.
“Point III: It was error for the defense attorney to withdraw a question put to Paul Blake on cross-examination, and it was error for the Court not to compel an answer.
*537 “Point IV: The defendant was denied a fair trial by the grossly inadequate representation by Gerald Mendell.
“Point V: It was error to allow John Murillo to be the Court interpreter at the preliminary hearing.
“Point VI: In this case in particular where an attorney had destroyed a vital alibi defense and where the defendant could not testify for himself in fear of section 788 of the Evidence Code the Court erred by not allowing the defendant to represent himself.
“Point VII: The arrest warrant was constitutionally invalid.
“Point VIII: As a point of law the defendant could not be convicted of the crime of Burglary as stated in the Information since the corpus delicti as stated in the Information was not established.
“Point IX: The trial court erred in refusing to compel disclosure of two material witnesses thereby denying the defendant a fair trial.
“Point X: The defendant was deprived of the right to counsel at a critical stage of the proceedings in violation of the Sixth Amendment.
“Point XI: The identification at the police line-up was tainted in that police procedures unfairly focused the witnesses ’ attention on the defendant thereby denying due process of law in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.
“Point XII: The identification at the preliminary hearing was tainted in that police procedures unfairly focused the witnesses’ attention on the defendant thereby denying due process of law in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.
‘.‘Point XIII: The Luger automatic was illegally seized and should not have been received in evidence.
‘ ‘ Point XIV: The defendant was denied due process and a fair trial in violation of the Federal Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments in that the standards of jury selection is [sic] unfairly biased and does [sic] not reflect a true cross-section of the community.
“Point XV: The jury was instructed that a witness need not make a positive identification; as a result of the instruction defendant’s guilt was not proved beyond a reasonable doubt.
“Point XVI: The defendant was denied due process of law in violation of the Fourth Amendment in that after an illegal arrest pursuant to an invalid arrest warrant and while thus illegally detained the defendant was required to partici *538 pate in a police line-up which resulted in prejudicial identification evidence being introduced into evidence at trial. ’ ’

First, Second and Third Contentions

Paul Blake testified as a prosecution witness that he entered Anthony’s for the purpose of obtaining money by theft, accompanied by a companion armed with a Luger automatic, and being himself armed with a pistol; that he had not taken the money from the kitchen helpers because it was not enough to bother with; asked by the district attorney if his companion was Michael Sullivan he refused to answer the question.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
271 Cal. App. 2d 531, 77 Cal. Rptr. 25, 1969 Cal. App. LEXIS 2409, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-sullivan-calctapp-1969.