People v. White

90 P. 471, 5 Cal. App. 329, 1907 Cal. App. LEXIS 317
CourtCalifornia Court of Appeal
DecidedApril 3, 1907
DocketCrim. No. 51.
StatusPublished
Cited by24 cases

This text of 90 P. 471 (People v. White) 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. White, 90 P. 471, 5 Cal. App. 329, 1907 Cal. App. LEXIS 317 (Cal. Ct. App. 1907).

Opinion

TAGGART, J.

Defendant was informed against for the crime of robbery. Prom a judgment of conviction in the superior court, and an order of that court denying his motion for a new trial, he appealed to the supreme court. This appeal was regularly transferred to this court for hearing and decision.

The evidence of the commission of the crime rests almost entirely upon the testimony of the complaining witness. The defense relies upon an alibi and the insufficiency of the identification of the defendant.

As the complaining witness was returning to her home about half-past 10 o’clock on the night of June 18, 1902, a man stepped in front of her. She stopped, threw up her hands and he struck her with a rock. She screamed, he told her to “shut up,” put his arm around her neck and struck her in the mouth with his fist. She kept screaming and he kept “beating” her. They both fell down, he on his knees and she on her back on the sidewalk. He kept pounding her in the face and she begged him to let her up. At last he “loosened up a little” on her and she said, “Do you want my money?” and he said, “Where is it?” She said, “It’s in my pocket. ’ ’ He said, "Give it to me. ”... He kept saying, “Give it to me.” “So,” says the witness, “I twisted myself in shape that I got the pocketbook, and he took it.”

After another effort to scream, followed by further beating, the man made a proposal to her which she characterized as the “worst proposal a man can make to a woman.” This statement was stricken out on motion of defendant. The witness then further testified that she was dragged through an opening in a billboard to a sandbank near the river, an effort was made by her assailant to tear her clothing from her, the undoing of his own clothing by the man, and other preparations made by him tending to show an attempt to commit rape. The witness described the face and dress of the man with much particularity of detail and attributed her ability to do this to the location of certain lights and to the fact that while she had been held down on the ground, an elec *332 trie headlight on a passing street-ear had shone upon the man’s face and clothing in such a manner as to enable her to see him with great distinctness."

The “proposal” spoken of was not introduced upon .the direct examination of the witness. Defendant demanded that the prosecution be required to disclose the language of this proposal as part of. the transaction, and excepted to the refusal of the court to require this to be done. On cross-examination the witness requested to be relieved from using the language of the proposal, and was permitted, with consent of defendant’s attorney, to write it on a piece of paper. It was a solicitation of sexual intercourse. It does not clearly appear from the record how or when (if at all) this language was disclosed to the jury. The suggestion was made by the district attorney that the writing be submitted to counsel and jury, but it does not affirmatively appear that this was done.

It is urged that the verdict is contrary to the evidence because, among other things, the condition of the lights at the scene of the crime were such that it was improbable that the complaining witness could have seen her assailant with sufficient clearness to be able to identify him. Beside the cross-examination of the complainant in this regard, the record shows many pages of testimony disclosing the results of various experiments made by different persons at the place where the offense was consummated to test the effect of the lights mentioned in complainant’s testimony. The testimony introduced by the defendant tended to establish a condition of darkness, and that of the prosecution one of light. The jury resolved these contradictory opinions in favor of the truthfulness of complainant’s story, and they were the sole judges of the credibility of the witnesses and of the weight of such conflicting evidence.

It is also contended that the motive and intent shown by the evidence indicated rape rather than robbery, that no taking was proven and, conceding a larceny was established, that it was not accompanied by sufficient force to constitute robbery. The complainant’s description of the occurrence up to the time of the delivery of her purse to her assailant embodies every element of the crime of robbery. Force and fear were both present, and it is unnecessary to distinguish those cases discussing the violence of the force used.

*333 Motive and intent to commit both robbery and rape appear from the evidence. In order that evidence of the latter might not induce the jury to find the defendant guilty of the former, merely because robbery was the crime charged in the information, the court gave the instruction marked “XXX.” The jury were thereby informed that, if the assault was for the purpose of rape and there was no intent to rob, and no taking of the purse by either force or fear, the defendant should be acquitted. It must be presumed that the jury did its duty and obeyed this instruction of the court.

The questions of the credibility of the complaining witness and the preponderance of the evidence, so extensively presented by appellant in his brief, were ultimately and conclusively determined by the superior court, when it denied his motion for a new trial, and cannot be considered by this court. What intent and motive were established by the evidence were also questions of fact and were included in that determination.

The effect of instruction XXX as to intent with which the crime was committed was not neutralized by the giving of the last instruction (not numbered) by the court. The latter instruction is in the following language:

“The court instructs the jury that, if you believe from the evidence, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the personal property mentioned in the information was in the possession of the witness Kate A. Dripps, and that the defendant by the use of force and violence upon the person of said Kate A. Dripps, or by putting her in fear, compelled her, against her will, to deliver to him the said personal property, or any part thereof, mentioned in the information, from her person, or immediate presence, as charged in the information, and that defendant then and there took and received said personal property from said Kate A. Dripps, under such circumstances and by such means, then the defendant would be guilty of robbery, even though you may further believe from the evidence that the defendant may have attacked the said Kate A. Dripps (if you believe from the evidence that he did attack her) for some other purpose or motive.”

If, as contended by appellant, the jury were advised by this instruction that a felonious intent to take the personal property mentioned in the information was not necessary to constitute the crime of robbery, then it would have been *334 an erroneous statement of the law, but we do not think this a necessary or proper construction of the language used by the court. The moving intent was evidenced by the acts of the party and the presumption of law that he intended the ordinary consequences of his acts. (Pen. Code, sec. 20; Code Civ. Proc., secs. 1962, 1963.) This attached successively to each act as done regardless of the original intent.

The last instruction given is not in conflict with instruction XXX.

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Bluebook (online)
90 P. 471, 5 Cal. App. 329, 1907 Cal. App. LEXIS 317, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-white-calctapp-1907.