Court Opinion

ID: 9627153
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 08:36:19.812277+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:06:40.645596
License: Public Domain

MOORE, P. J.,
Concurring/ — I concur. The testimony of the defendant Anderson, an accomplice, tells the tale of a sordid conspiracy of two life-long friends, formerly united by family ties. Both, without funds, decided upon procuring by some means a mine of some sort to use as a basis for the sale of something to get money. Their working together resulted in appellant’s lease of the Arizona property. It is not necessary that the conviction of appellant should have been founded upon the testimony of witnesses other than that of his accomplice. It is sufficient that evidence outside of his confederate’s story tend to connect defendants with the commission of the crime. (People v. Cloonan, 50 Cal. 449; People v. Zimmerman, 65 Cal. 307 [4 Pac. 20]; People v. *32McLean, 84 Cal. 480, 482 [24 Pac. 32] ; People v. Davis, 135 Cal. 162 [67 Pac. 59]; People v. Watson, 21 Cal. App. 692 [132 Pac. 836].)
The witness Heldt saw telegrams from appellant stating that a number of tons of ore were available. Appellant admitted that, from time to time, he was expected to ship so many car loads or tons at a certain period; that he knew of the form of contract used by his codefendants in making sales; that he had signed in blank and given such a form to the witness Truax for the purpose of raising money after the same fashion; that said form was identical with that used by Anderson and Barricklow in their sale to Schadandorf; that he learned of the sales of ore by his confederates from several sources; that he wired Anderson that he expected to “ship so many car loads or tons within a certain period”, and that he knew that Anderson and Barricklow were carrying on “a movement satisfactory to the Securities Commission on selling ore tonnage”.
Appellant’s letter to Anderson, in the early days of the enterprise, stating that he would be able to get out “twenty-one cars” during the month of October, and of his purpose to make the output steady “so all commitments made or planned in connection therewith will be promptly met”, was a potent factor in the proof of his complicity in Anderson’s sales of ore. Also, after Anderson, in his anxiety, sought assistance of appellant in improving the form of the bill of sale, appellant procured advice and an improved form, and forwarded it to Anderson with the statement that it was “bullet proof”. Moreover, appellant entered into contracts like those used by Anderson and Barricklow while “he had no facilities for fulfilling them”.
Although appellant sent money to take up the contracts sold by Ms codefendants, no ore was ever mined or shipped. None was ever milled. Equipment for mining and transportation was so insignificant as to make it unworthy of mention.
Having knowledge of the sales campaign carried on by his codefendants, knowing that only by his work and by the properties under his control were the fulfillment of those contracts possible, and that he had no satisfactory facilities for mining or transporting or milling, — these facts being estab*33lished outside of the testimony of his confederates, nothing more is required to establish the reasonableness of the inference drawn by the jury.