People v. Appleton

Citations

• 120 Cal. 250
• 52 P. 582
• 1898 Cal. LEXIS 744

Syllabus

<p>Criminal Law—Grand Larceny—Money Taken from Person—Sufficiency of Circumstantial Evidence—Questions for Jury. — Circumstantial evidence reviewed and held sufficient to justify a conviction of the crime of grand larceny in talcing a purse containing less than fifty dollars from the pocket of a man who was in a drunken sleep on a doorstep, though neither the defendant nor his companion were seen in actual contact with his person, but the situation and circumstances were such as to have afforded them the opportunity, and to have justified the jury in inferring that the purse was in the pocket when • taken and was abstracted therefrom; and the questions as to whether the purse might have fallen from the pocket, and was not . upon the person of the sleeper when taken, and as to the weight of the evidence tending substantially to establish the defendant’s guilt, were for the jury to determine.</p> <p>Id.—Instructions as to Taking from Person—Absence of Special Bequest. It is sufficient for the court to give correctly the definition of the offense of grand larceny in taking property from the person of another, in the general terms of the statute, unless requested by the defendant to give a more particular charge as to what constitutes a taking from the person, within the meaning of the statute, in which case it is the duty of the court to give such instruction; but, in the absence of such request, the defendant will be deemed to have been satisfied with the charge as given, and the omission to give a more particular instruction as to what constitutes the offense, which it was the duty of the defendant to ask for, if desired, is not error.</p> <p>Id.—Admission of Previous Conviction—Estoppel of Defendant.—The de- * fendant having, on arraignment, admitted the fact of a former conviction charged against him, could not he heard, upon the trial, to question the correctness of such fact, without first getting leave to withdraw the admission.</p>