People v. Silva

EDMONDS, J.

While confined in San Quentin Prison under a sentence of life imprisonment, James Francis Silva stabbed and seriously wounded Kenneth King, another inmate. A jury found Silva guilty of a violation of section 4500 of the Penal Code

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and concluded that he was sane at the time the offense was committed. The statutory appeal (Pen. Code, § 1239b) is from the judgment imposing the death penalty and from an order denying a motion for a new trial.

On the Monday morning preceeding the stabbing, Silva and King were students in a prison bookkeeping class. Silva was having difficulty in the use of an adding machine and suddenly became angry when King intervened and attempted to demonstrate its operation. A quarrel began and was con-

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tinned during a recess period a few minutes later. At that time a fist fight occurred, in which Silva’s nose was broken. The fight stopped quickly, and Silva apologized for having lost his temper. King returned to the classroom and Silva went to the prison hospital for medical treatment.

After receiving medical attention, Silva obtained a pass which enabled him to go into the prison yard, where he had secreted a knife. Concealing it on his person, he began looking for King but did not find him on that afternoon. At noontime on the following day he observed King, but a prison custodial officer was nearby. Later Silva searched for King in the prison yard and the cell blocks, but he was unsuccessful in locating him until they went to class the next afternoon.

In the classroom, Silva was given a seat about 6 or 8 feet to the rear of the chair occupied by King. He waited until the class was in session, and then walked to the pencil sharpener. The room was quiet and all of the occupants were busily engaged in their work. Silva stepped behind King, withdrew the knife from his belt, and plunged it into King’s back. An exclamation by King caused the others in the room to look up as Silva was attempting to withdraw the knife. Silva then walked swiftly from the room and thereafter surrendered to prison authorities.

Signed statements in accordance with these facts were given by Silva to prison officials and to the district attorney, and at the trial he took the stand and gave a detailed account of the stabbing. He stated that immediately after the fight on Monday morning, he decided to kill King. His decision did not stem from a fit of temper, he explained, but from a “cool, hateful anger” toward King and a desire for revenge. He would have attacked King sooner, he declared, had there been an opportunity to do so at a time when he might have avoided detection. According to his testimony, his apprehension resulted from King’s exclamation and his inability to withdraw the knife from the wound, but realizing his failure to avoid detection, he decided that the sole remaining course was to confess the crime and accept his punishment. A trial was unnecessary, he said, and the trial judge and his counsel should have permitted liim to enter a plea of guilty.