Court Opinion

ID: 9794268
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 03:02:21.010579+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:13:33.387229
License: Public Domain

CARTER, J.
I dissent. The evidence purporting to connect defendant with the robbery is clearly insufficient to corroborate the testimony of the accomplice Roberts. I reaffirm my views expressed in People v. Trujillo, 32 Cal.2d 105 [194 P.2d 681], but am compelled to point out that the corroborating evidence here is even weaker than that in the Trujillo case. Here the sole evidence is that defendant obtained and thus had in his possession before the robbery a .410 gauge shotgun. There is no independent evidence as to whether such gun had a normal barrel or a shortened one, whether it was a double or single barrel gun, or whether it was a single shot, repeater or automatic. In fact there is no description whatsoever of the gun except that it was a .410 gauge shotgun. The evidence concerning the gun used in the robbery is even more vague. One witness said that he did not notice whether the barrel was shortened and later that it was “sawed off”; that it looked like a small caliber shotgun. One witness testified that the report when the shotgun was discharged sounded like a .410 gauge. No other description of the gun was given. It seems manifest to me that there was a total absence of evidence to show that the gun obtained by defendant was the same gun that was fired at the robbery. Such being the case, there is no corroborating evidence connecting defendant with the robbery. In Kitchens v. Commonwealth, 279 Ky. 785 [132 S.W.2d 327], the corroborating evidence offered was the statement by an eye*348witness that a car seen at the scene of the crime was of the same general description as one owned by defendant. Finding such evidence insufficient, the court declared: “We do not think that the mere fact that appellant owned a ear answering the same general description of the one seen at the time and place of the robbery, is of probative value tending to connect appellant with the commission of the offense. It is not shown that appellant’s car and the car seen by the prosecuting witness at the place of the robbery, bear any peculiar marks of identification tending to show that they were of the same class of cars. It is thus seen that the evidence relating to the car does not any more tend to connect appellant with the commission of the offense than any other person who might own a car of the same class, or same general description.” The same reasoning applies here. Merely because a shotgun of a certain gauge (although the evidence is far from satisfactory on that subject) was used in the commission of the crime and that that class of a gun was in defendant’s possession is not enough to inculpate defendant. If it is, then all those persons owning .410 gauge shotguns, .38 caliber revolvers, or any of the other varieties of firearms, are under suspicion when a crime is committed wherein a gun such as he owns is used. This is especially pernicious when it is remembered that there was no independent evidence showing that defendant was present at the scene of the crime or any place in that vicinity.
Stress is laid by the majority on the testimony of Roberts that hoods were worn by him and defendant and the testimony of the people in the café that hoods were worn, but corroborating evidence must tend to conned defendant with the crime. I fail to see how such evidence would have that effect. Suppose both groups of evidence showed the participants wore hats, or pants, or were men, or women. Certainly that would not show any connection of the defendant with the crime.
There being no evidence, other than the testimony of an accomplice, connecting defendant with the crime charged, I would reverse the judgment.