DocketNumber: Crim. No. 13068
Citation Numbers: 256 Cal. App. 2d 638
Judges: Fourt
Filed Date: 12/5/1967
Status: Precedential
Modified Date: 1/12/2022
This is a purported appeal from a judgment and an appeal from an order denying a motion for a new trial.
In an information filed in Los Angeles on April 22, 1966, defendant was charged with possessing heroin on February 21,1966. Defendant pleaded not guilty. It was stipulated that the cause be submitted on the testimony contained in the transcript of the proceedings had at the preliminary hearing. The prosecution presented additional evidence at the trial. Defendant was found guilty as charged. A motion for a new trial was denied. Criminal proceedings were adjourned for it was determined that defendant was an addict or by reason of repeated use of narcotics was in imminent danger of becoming addicted to narcotics. It was directed that a petition be filed in department 95 pursuant to the provisions of section 3051, Welfare and Institutions Code. The appeal, timely filed, is from a nonexistent judgment and from the order denying the motion for a new trial.
A résumé of some of the facts is as follows; Officers Dorrell and Fesler of the narcotics division of the Los Angeles Police Department were qualified experts in the field of narcotics activities in Los Angeles. Officer Dorrell received information that defendant was living at 330 Witmer Street, Los Angeles, in apartment 209. The officers, in the course of a narcotics investigation, proceeded to the address mentioned. As Officer Dorrell approached the door of apartment 209, Officer Fesler was outside the building in the area of a bathroom window in apartment 209. Officer Dorrell knocked on the door of the apartment and defendant made inquiry from the inside of the apartment as to who was there and Officer Dorrell answered, “police.” A short interval of time intervened between the
Defendant testified that he did not admit the officer into the apartment, that the officer was already inside the first time he was observed; that he (defendant) was alone at the time in question, and that when he heard the knock on the door he went into the bathroom.
It is interesting to note that defendant was never asked, nor did he testify, as to whether the heroin which came out of the bathroom window was his.
Appellant now contends that the identity of the informer who first told the officers of appellant’s location should have been disclosed and that there was not probable cause to make an arrest.
The officers, of course, had the right to investigate. That was what was being done at the time and Officer Fesler saw what later appeared to him to be heroin being tossed out of the bathroom window of appellant’s apartment. Certainly under the circumstances it was reasonable to assume that appellant was the person who threw out the heroin—indeed,
To be informed of the identity of the informer would not assist appellant one iota in this case. Appellant was arrested not because of what the informer may have said but because of the heroin coming- out of the window.
The purported appeal from the nonexistent judgment is dismissed.
The order denying a motion for a new trial is affirmed.
Wood, P. J., and Lillie, J., concurred.