People v. Benjamin

THE COURT.

By an information filed in the superior court of Alameda County the defendant was charged with the crime of murder. He was convicted of murder in the first degree, and his penalty therefor—life imprisonment— was fixed by the verdict of the jury.

The facts of the ease as revealed by the evidence adduced upon the trial are substantially these: About the hour of 9 o’clock on the evening of March 4, 1916, Officer Gushe of the Oakland police department was seen to approach and place his hand upon the shoulder of a man who was standing or walking in the vicinity of Twelfth and Clay Streets in the city of Oakland. The officer, holding the man by the shoulder, proceeded a few steps, when the latter turned and engaged in a scuffle with the officer, during which a shot from a revolver was fired, after which the man broke the grasp of the officer and fled. The officer followed for a short distance, and after firing several ineffectual shots at the fleeing man, fell to the sidewalk as the result of a wound inflicted by a 32-caliber bullet, and which wound, it was subsequently shown, caused his death. The man continued his flight, and, although a crowd pursued him, made good his escape. The defendant was arrested several days later and charged with the billing. Several witnesses who were at or near the scene of the scuffle with the officer, gave a description of the man whom he apparently had under arrest which fitted the defendant with exactness, and several other witnesses positively identified the defendant as the man who passed within a few feet of them under a bright light pursued by a crowd and running from the scene of the shooting.

Subsequent to the killing, and prior to the defendant being charged therewith, the defendant attracted the attention of Officer Hughes of the San Francisco police department, who observed him loitering and apparently begging on Sutter Street in said city. Hughes approached the defendant and asked him if he was working. He replied in the negative, and

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in response to further questions concerning his place of abode and means of livelihood demanded to know why the inquiry was made, whereupon Hughes displayed his star. The defendant then exclaimed, “I shoot the likes of you; got no use for you, and I am going to get you before I get through with you. ’ ’ Hughes thereupon placed the defendant under arrest, and was in the act of searching him when the defendant drew' a 32-ealiber revolver from his pocket and pressed it against the body of Hughes. The officer grasped the revolver, and, breaking it, proceeded with the search of the defendant’s person, which revealed twenty-one 32-caliber loaded pistol cartridges, a large butcher-knife, and a razor.