Inman

Following trial by jury, Vernon Inman appeals his conviction and sentence for 27 felony counts of receiving stolen property (Pen. Code, § 496) 1 and a single count of carrying a concealed weapon in a vehicle (§ 12025, subd. (a)).

Background

The offenses arise out of two encounters in late 1983 in which police found Inman carrying property that turned out to have been taken in a series of Sonoma County burglaries spanning July through early December of that year.

The first encounter was at a gun shop on November 22. Inman had proposed to trade a Colt .45 semiautomatic pistol to an acquaintance, Louis Zall, that day. The two went to the shop because Zall wanted to have the shop’s owner, a gunsmith whom he had dealt with before, inspect the Colt and run its serial numbers to make sure it was not stolen. After the gunsmith disassembled and inspected the gun, Zall asked him to check the numbers. The gunsmith handed the gun’s frame to county sheriff’s detective Charles Smith, *1140 a personal friend who had just entered the shop, and asked Smith if he would run the numbers for him. Smith did, using an office phone to call the sheriff’s office, and learned that the gun had…