Sawyer

The indictment charged the five defendants with three offenses: count 1, burglary of Alvin Price’s residence with intent to commit a felonious assault; count 2, felonious assault upon Alvin Price; count 3, felonious assault upon Gregory Williams. The jury found defendants guilty of first degree burglary, felonious assault upon Price and simple assault upon Williams. The court imposed sentences on the burglary convictions, suspending imposition of sentence on the other charges as parts of a single transaction. Defendants appeal.

One brief has been filed on behalf of defendants Rajotte, Sawyer, Martin and Moore; another on behalf of defendant Kanzler. On a particular afternoon Alvin Price, a Negro, was riding in a car with his 17-year-old cousin, Gregory Williams, and a third man. They passed a car in which Shirley Rajotte, wife of defendant Rajotte, was riding. She twice made an obscene gesture and called them “niggers.” Price and his companions followed the car in their own automobile to a house in the Oak Park District of Sacramento. Price walked over to Mrs. Rajotte and asked why she had called him a name and asked whether she had mistaken them for someone else. Conversation…