Hyatt

Defendant was charged with the offense of child stealing, a violation of Penal Code section 278; was found guilty by a jury’s verdict; was granted probation; and appeals.

Defendant and his wife were parties to a divorce action in which, by an order pendente lite, the minor children of the parties, Troy and Deborah, were placed in the custody of the wife, their mother, with a right of visitation by the defendant on Saturday of each week. Defendant admitted having knowledge of this order. At the trial of the case on May 18, 1965, at which all parties were present, the court orally announced its intended decision to place the custody of the children in the mother with the right of visitation by the defendant on the first Sunday of each month. On June 15, 1965, the court entered an interlocutory decree of divorce awarding custody accordingly. Although denied by defendant, the evidence inferentially supports the conclusion he had knowledge of this order prior to July 4, 1965. On the latter date, a Sunday, defendant came to the mother’s home and obtained the children in the exercise of his visitation privilege, which extended from 1Ó a.m. to 5 p.m. of that day. In the…