Court Opinion

ID: 9625154
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 07:29:25.951777+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:06:01.868795
License: Public Domain

CARTER, J.
I dissent.
There is insufficient evidence to support the conviction. There is no evidence to establish that appellant Robinson *142agreed or planned with Schaefer to violate the bookmaking laws (Pen. Code, § 337a) except the inference that might arise from evidence that Schaefer handed the money he had received from the officer and a betting paper to Robinson. The jury, however, found that Robinson did not violate the bookmaking law, that is, he did not accept bets from Schaefer which the latter had received from the officer. Appellant was found not guilty of bookmaking. It is fundamental in conspiracy that the “Conspirators must have entered into a corrupt agreement to accomplish a common unlawful design. The agreement may have been positively entered into or it may be the result of a tacit, mutual understanding. It is not necessary that the parties should meet together and enter into an explicit or formal, or elaborate and detailed, written agreement to commit the crime. Nor is it necessary that the criminal enterprise in its inception contemplate a particular crime as against a particular person or as between particular persons. It is only necessary that each conspirator adopt a common design with the knowledge and consent of the others. And the agreement may result from the actions of the defendants in carrying out a common purpose to achieve an unlawful end.” (11 Cal.Jur.2d, Conspiracy, §13.)
In the instant case the only connection of appellant with the betting was his alleged acceptance of bets from Schaefer. Schaefer accepted bets from the officer. He then went to the café where appellant worked and talked to appellant. Thus far there is no basis for an inference of an agreement. There is evidence that Schaefer then handed the money received from the officer together with a bet notation to appellant and the latter accepted them. Assuming from that that we may infer appellant and Schaefer had a prior agreement or made one at that time for appellant to accept bets from Schaefer and hence one of the elements of a conspiracy, such actions on appellant’s part, if they occurred, would constitute a violation of section 337a of the Penal Code—the acceptance of bets on a horse race. But the jury found appellant did not accept bets, did not violate section 337a. Thus he did not accept the money or a betting record from Schaefer. Any inference of an agreement is therefore negated.
The majority opinion purports to escape the effect of the jury -finding appellant not guilty of violating section 337a, by holding that there were some overt acts which did not involve appellant’s asserted activities in the café. That is beside the point. Assuming that there was evidence of overt *143acts, it was still necessary to establish an agreement, and the acquittal of appellant of accepting bets embraced facts which eliminated him from any agreement with Schaefer.
I do not believe there was a lack of corroboration. Officer Jacobsen, not the accomplice Schaefer, was testifying. He testified to the actions and statements of Schaefer while the conspiracy—the crime—was being committed, not as to statements made by him later after the crime was complete. Hence it is the same as any observer who sees the crime committed and testifies about it. His observation may include statements as well as actions of the criminal where both are relevant, and in a conspiracy case, conversations are relevant parts of the offense. Hence it is not a case of an accomplice’s testimony or testimony of extrajudicial admissions by the accomplice which were not a part of the crime.
Because there was no proof connecting defendant with a conspiracy, I would reverse the judgment.
Schauer, J., concurred.