McNabb

The defendants were jointly charged with robbery of one Robert Mahon in Los Angeles County on or about May 21, 1922, and appeal from the judgment based upon a verdict of guilty rendered the sixteenth day of Janu ary, 1923, and from the order denying their motion for new trial.

The principal grounds of appeal consist of alleged insufficiency of evidence to sustain the verdict, improper admission in evidence of an accomplice’s testimony taken at the preliminary examination, and failure to corroborate such testimony; the soundness of the first ground turns upon that of the latter two, and accordingly the judgment must stand or fall with them. If there was not sufficient competent evidence of guilt a new trial should be granted.

The evidence for the state opens with the testimony of one Cecil Coons, given upon the preliminary examination, wherein he confessed to complicity with these appellants in the commission of the offense. Thereafter and prior to the trial this witness pleaded guilty and was sent to the industrial school at Chino, California, from which he escaped. His testimony is prefaced by that of two superintendents of the institution as to his disappearance, of a police…