People v. Kirsch

This is an appeal from a judgment of conviction and from an order denying a motion for a new trial. In January, 1927, the defendant was indicted on twelve counts, four for grand larceny, four for obtaining property by false pretenses and four for embezzlement. Four transactions only were involved, .each one of the four being pleaded three ways and charging a different offense. The trial court sustained a demurrer to the four false pretense counts and proceeded to trial on the remaining counts. The defendant was found guilty of grand larceny as charged in count IV, and of petit larceny under the charge contained in count X. The remaining six counts were eliminated by verdicts of not guilty thereon.

The Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Company operates an exchange in the city of San Diego. By contract entered into in January, 1924, with the Western Electric Company, the latter company agreed to act as agent for the Telephone Company in the purchase of supplies and equipment; also to receive and dispose of apparatus or supplies returned to it by the Telephone Company, including material which had no value except as junk. The Electric Company agreed to dispose of this junk material at the best possible advantage and, after deducting a charge for its services, credit the Telephone Company with the net amount received from the sale.

In July, 1926, the Western Electric Company entered into a contract with the Sugarman Iron & Metal Company to sell to the latter scrap or junk material that might accumulate during the period from July 1, 1926, to June 30, 1927, the sales to take place at different localities, including the regular yard and warehouse of the Telephone Company at San Diego. This contract provided that the weight, count, and classification of the material delivered to the purchaser should be made by the seller. The Sugarman company as

In regard to the transaction in which the defendant was convicted of petit larceny, it appeared that certain junk material was loaded on the truck and, by order of the defendant, the truck went direct to the box-car, where a portion of the load was unloaded into the box-car before any weighing had taken place; that the defendant then ordered the truck to the scale and weighed; that no accounting was made to the seller of the portion of the material removed from the truck before the weighing had taken place.

It is first contended by the defendant that the crime of larceny was not, and could not have been, committed under the facts shown. It is conceded that there was no

The defendant further contends that there was a fatal variance as to the ownership of the property. The indictment alleged ownership in the Telephone Company, whereas it is claimed that the proof showed ownership to be in the Electric Company. The evidence is subject to the construction that the Electric Company was merely a purchasing agent or supply department of the Telephone Company with right to pass the title of the junk material upon a sale in accordance with the terms of the contract between the two companies. Such a sale of the property in question had not been consummated. Furthermore, the possession of the property immediately before it was loaded into the trucks on orders from the defendant was in the Telephone Company. Possession alone, as against the wrongdoer, is a sufficient interest to justify an allegation and proof of ownership in a prosecution for larceny. (People v. Edwards, supra.)

Numerous errors in the admission and rejection of evidence are claimed by the defendant to have been committed by the trial court. It is argued that the court committed prejudicial error in admitting evidence of gifts of liquor made by defendant to employees of the Telephone

It is also contended that the failure of the jury to pass upon the plea of once in jeopardy makes a new trial imperative. Following the order sustaining the demurrer to the four counts charging the obtaining of property by false pretenses, the prosecution requested permission to amend those counts. This the court refused. When the defendant was required to plead he entered pleas of not guilty to the remaining counts and also tendered pleas of former jeopardy and former acquittal by reason of the implied dismissal of the false pretense counts. When these pleas were interposed on February 28, 1927, argument was had, not in the presence of the jury, on the question of whether such pleas would lie on the then state of the record. The court “overruled” said pleas and thus decided as matter of law that they would not lie. It may be assumed, as contended by the defendant, that had the indictment charged one offense only and had the demurrer been sustained thereto, without direction to amend or resubmit to the same or a different grand jury, the case would have been at an end and the legal bar to further proceedings would have attached under section 1008 of the Penal Code. But such is not this ease. Bach of the counts dismissed charged an offense separate and distinct from the charge stated in any other count. The fact that the pleader stated in each of the counts dismissed that the matters and things alleged therein “constitute another and separate statement of the

We are satisfied from an examination of the record that the defendant was fairly tried; that the evidence was sufficient to sustain the conviction and as we find no prejudicial error in the record the judgment and order are, and each is, affirmed.

Richards, J., Seawell, J., Curtis, J., and Tyler, J., pro tern., concurred.