P. v. Hobb
Defendant and appellant Earl Hobbs was a Deputy City Auditor for the City of Long Beach. He was also a licensed attorney. Defendant used documents and information that he had obtained in the course of his employment as a Deputy City Auditor to represent a client in a class action against the City of Los Angeles. Defendant was prosecuted for embezzlement (Pen. Code, 504) and grand theft (Pen. Code, 487), with respect to the documents and the confidential knowledge he had obtained. Defendants defense was that he had no fraudulent intent, because the documents he had used in his lawsuit were subject to disclosure under the Public Records Act (PRA), so he had an absolute right to possess them. At trial, the trial court instructed the jury that, as a matter of law, the documents defendant had taken from the Auditors office were not subject to disclosure under the PRA. Defendant appeals, arguing that this instruction took the determination of an element of the offense away from the jury. Court agree, and therefore reverse.
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