People v. Vicunia

NORTON, J.,

pro

tem.

The defendant in this case was

convicted of murder in the second degree and appeals from the judgment of conviction and the order denying his motion for new trial. The killing of the deceased, Santiago Puentes, by the defendant, was admitted by him, and briefly stated the evidence by the prosecution upon the trial of the case showed that in the morning of the 20th of September, 1929, two days before the deceased was slain by the defendant, he met the deceased’s wife near the station of the Pacific Electric Company at Los Nietos, where she was waiting to board a street-car for Los Angeles, and endeavored to induce her to enter his automobile, and proposed to her that- she go with him for the purpose of having illicit relations. He taunted her with the accusation that her husband was familiar with his, Yicunia’s wife, and when she refused to accede to his proposal he threatened her husband, stating that he hoped to deprive her of him and allow him to “roll in his own blood. ” On the evening of the Sunday following this threat by defendant to take the life of deceased while Mrs. Puentes was in her home she heard five shots fired in rapid succession, and looking out the front door of her home she saw her husband struggling with the defendant for the possession of a pistol which was in the hands of the defendant. That her husband finally secured possession of the pistol and shortly thereafter the defendant was seen by her running into his own house from which he presently left in his automobile. No more than five shots were fired. The deceased was taken to a hospital and at the hospital the pistol, together with the five exploded shells, was surrendered by him to a friend of his who brought him to the hospital. The pistol was

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a 38-caliber Colt’s, and was admitted by the defendant to be his. Mrs. Puentes testified her husband did not own a pistol and that she saw but one pistol at the time of the struggle between her husband and Yicunia. An autopsy was held after the death of the deceased which disclosed that he was suffering from two wounds, a basal fracture of the skull and a gunshot wound in the abdomen which caused his death. The surgeon who performed the autopsy found a bullet from a 38-caliber pistol in the soft tissues of the hip where it had lodged after passing through the iliac crest. A bullet hole was found in the fence in front of the Puentes home, which tended to corroborate her testimony that the shooting occurred in front of the Puentes house instead of as claimed by the defendant in front of his house, which was located in the lot adjoining that of the deceased. Defendant and Ms family gave a different account of the transaction from that of the witness for the prosecution, but it was the province of the jury to determine where the truth lay and there is ample evidence to support the verdict of the jury.