People v. Monson

MOORE, P. J.

From a judgment convicting him of arson defendant demands a reversal on the ground that the trial court sustained objections to questions asked for the purpose of showing “bias, prejudice and interest of the prosecution’s only direct witness.”

Appellant and his wife had been separated for about two months. She and her children resided in a house on a Los Angeles boulevard while her father lived in the apartment over the garage in the rear. On a February evening appellant called to see his wife. Finding her absent he sat in an automobile parked at the front to await her return. When she arrived with her five children about 10 p.m. he asked her to go home with him. When she refused he said that if she and the children did not he would bum down the house and everything in it. As they entered the home, he remained in the yard.

Mr. Sanchez, appellant’s father-in-law, had retired about 9 p.m. in the apartment above the garage and lay reading at 11:20 when he was disturbed by a noise outside. That was followed by the sound of someone’s opening doors. As he

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peered through the window a fire started below him and appellant stood at the left of the garage door bending over with his face inside and his right hand extended toward the burning. As Sanchez descended to the ground appellant ran through the garden in the rear. The structure having been destroyed two firemen from the city’s arson bureau inspected the remains and at the trial testified that the fire originated just inside and to the left of the door in an area where a highly volatile fluid had been ignited. They established that there had been nothing there susceptible of spontaneous ignition or that might have caused the fire by accident. Appellant denied the accusation and all incriminatory acts charged against him but he was unable to overcome the testimony (1) of his son who had heard the threat, (2) of Sanchez who saw him at the scene and (3) of the firemen whose opinions excluded every reasonable theory of the fire’s origin save that of the instrumentality of appellant.

The rulings of the court which are assigned as error were made to several questions propounded to Mr. Sanchez on cross-examination which will be discussed in the order presented. All objections were on the general ground of immateriality and irrelevancy.