Dorrance

—The appellants, Seeundino Dorrance and Alonzo Dorrance, were found guilty by a jury of the crime of first degree robbery.

The victim of the robbery was Ernest Neil, a sailor of the United States Navy, stationed at Treasure Island; and the robbery was committed shortly before midnight on July 29, 1943, in the rear of a parking lot, a short distance from a saloon known as George’s Cave, on Eddy Street between Leavenworth and Jones Streets, in San Francisco. Neil was knocked down by blows on the head inflicted with Coca Cola bottles, and then beaten with the bottles about the head so severely that he was confined in bed in a hospital for five days and required two blood transfusions. He suffered a severe gash on the head, a broken nose, and blackened eyes, and his fingers were smashed when he tried to protect himself by putting his hands on his head. While he was thus being beaten his wallet containing $40 was stolen from his back pocket.

Earlier that evening Neil visited the saloon with another sailor, and they picked up an acquaintanceship with two women, Ila Hain, aged nineteen years, and a Mrs. Villela. The women were acquainted with appellants, and had met them earlier that…