People v. Valenzuela

SEAWELL, J.

The appellant, Natividad Valenzuela, was charged by an information filed against him in the county of Orange with having, on May 2, 1936, murdered Jovita Lopez Valenzuela, his wife. He entered the general plea of not guilty and also the plea of not guilty by reason of insanity. The jury returned a verdict of guilty of murder as charged in the information, without recommending life imprisonment, and the issue of insanity having been subsequently determined against him, the court pronounced the sentence of death upon the jury’s said verdicts.

His attorney in his opening brief says that he feels that the case was fairly tried and the evidence fairly presented to the jury. The sole question raised by him goes to the issue of intent, or rather to the capacity of the defendant to form a criminal intent. During the trial of the main case appellant’s attorney made an offer to prove that the appellant had on several occasions, in bursts of anger and with little or no reason to do so, made violent assaults upon his brother, Narsario, and upon one occasion upon the father,

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who interfered in a difficulty between the brothers. These troubles, as related by the father and brother, grew out of disputes touching the control of or the right to an automobile which seemed to have been used by the brothers in accordance with some kind of an understanding between them, or were occasioned by the appellant’s irritability as to the method in which the brother Narsario was performing the work in which both were engaged. The appellant was taken into custody by a peace officer, on one occasion, on complaint made by the father as the result of a difficulty in which several members of the family took part, but the complaint seems to have been withdrawn or dismissed. Proof of this class of independent acts, which were in no sense a part of the

res gestae,

was tendered in the main issue of not guilty to show, as appellant puts it, that he was subject to fits or spells during which he suffered a loss of mental poise and self-control. It was not claimed that said temperamental condition rendered him absolutely exempt from punishment, but that it was a proper matter for the jury to consider in determining the question as to whether the defendant should suffer the death penalty or imprisonment in the state penitentiary at the discretion of the jury. (Sec. 190, Pen. Code.) The above section absolutely delegates the fixing of the penalty for the commission of murder in the first degree to the discretion of the jury trying the case. The question appellant presents is whether mental weakness or infirmities which do not amount to the kind or degree of insanity or irresponsibility which exempts a person from legal responsibility are proper matters for the consideration of the jury in the exercise of its discretion as to whether the punishment should be death or confinement in a penal institution. Under the decisions of this state, the only test applicable to a determination of legal responsibility for the violation of statutes against crime is: “Did the accused know or understand the nature and quality of the act which he committed, and if so, did' he know it was wrong and punishable by law?” If the answer be that he did, he must suffer punishment as prescribed by law, notwithstanding mental abnormalities which do not bear upon the commission of the act. But granting that he is not exempt from punishment by reason of mental deficiencies, is, nevertheless, his mental weakness a proper mat