Case ID: cal-app_74/html/0636-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "FINLAYSON, P. J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

[Crim. No. 1264.
    Second Appellate District, Division Two.
    October 20, 1925.]
    THE PEOPLE, Respondent, v. JOSE RODARTE, Appellant.
    
       Criminal Law—Firearms Law—Foreign Nativity—Corpus Delicti— Evidence — Admissions.—In a prosecution for a violation of the Firearms Act (Stats. 1923, p. 695 et seq.), under which act it is made a crime for an unnaturalized foreign-born person to have in his possession a concealed weapon Of the type described in the statute, birth in a foreign country is an essential part of the corpus delicti; and where there is no corroboration of the defendant’s extrajudicial admissions of foreign birth, the evidence is insufficient to prove that element of the crime.
    (1) 16 C. J., p. 772, n. 27; 40 Cyc., p. 868, n. 30 New.
    See 26 Cal. Jur. 579.
    APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Riverside County and from an order denying a new trial. William H. Ellis, Judge.
    Reversed.
    The facts are stated in the opinion of the court.
    Albert D. Trujillo and William G. Randall for Appellant.
    U. S. Webb, Attorney-General, Erwin W. Widney, Deputy Attorney-General, and John L. Flynn for Respondent.
   FINLAYSON, P. J.

Defendant was charged with a violation of the Firearms Act (Stats. 1923, p. 695 et eq.). It is made a crime by that act for an unnaturalized foreign-born person to have in his possession a concealed weapon of the type described in the statute. Defendant was found guilty as charged and now appeals from the judgment and from an order denying his motion for a new trial.

Possession of the weapon was not disputed, but the only evidence that defendant is of the proscribed class consisted of certain extrajudicial admissions that he was born in Mexico, made by him to the officers at the time of his arrest.

It is insisted by appellant that birth in a foreign country is an essential part of the corpus delicti, and that, since there was no corroboration of his extrajudicial admissions of foreign birth, the evidence is insufficient to prove that element of the crime. The point is well taken. The supreme court, in the recent case of People v. Quarez, 196 Cal. 404 [238 Pac. 363]—decided since the trial of this case in the court below—held conformably with appellant’s contention.

The judgment and the order denying a new trial are reversed.

Works, J., and Craig, J., concurred.