People v. Freeman

97 Cal. Rptr. 717 (Cal. Ct. App. 1971)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

D served as the getaway man in an armed robbery of a store perpetrated by two accomplices, Foster and Ellis. Several witnesses inside the store identified Foster and Ellis as the holdup men. Gonzales, a witness who was outside the store, saw three men arrive in an automobile. Two went into the store and one remained in the car. A few minutes later Gonzales saw the two men walking rapidly from the store and get into the car, which drove away. Gonzales entered the store and furnished the car's description to the proprietor, who was just phoning the police. Police sighted the car and stopped it. D was driving the car, and Foster was a passenger. The car belonged to D. At the lineup, Gonzales tentatively identified Foster as one of the two men who had entered the store, but he was unable to identify D as the driver. D testified he had spent Friday night at the home of his fiancée, Brenda Banks. He left there to see a doctor about his back before the doctor closed his office at noon. En route, he saw Foster and offered him a ride. D explained that on Friday, the preceding day, Ellis had approached him about buying the Chevrolet. Ellis would use the Chevrolet overnight and would be over the next day with the money if he liked the car; if not, he would leave it in front of Brenda Banks' home. Mrs. Anna Duckworth and Fred Knipp, a district attorney's investigator were prosecution rebuttal witnesses, and both testified over D's objections. Mrs. Duckworth testified that about 7 a.m. she had gone to the nearby house of her daughter, Annette, girlfriend of Foster. While Mrs. Duckworth was outside the house, a man came to the house. She heard her daughter greet the man with the words, 'Hi, Norman.' Several days later Knipp, the investigator, interviewed her. She admitted telling Knipp that her daughter had greeted a man by the name of Norman; denied telling Knipp that Foster had been in bed at Annette's house on the morning in question; denied telling Knipp that Norman twice came to the house that morning and, on the second occasion, had left the house in company with Foster; denied identifying the man as D. Knipp, also testified that he had interviewed Mrs. Duckworth, who told him that on the morning in question a man had twice come to the daughter's house, where Lee Foster was in bed; that on the second occasion Foster and the man had left the house together; that the man was D. D was convicted and appealed.