People v. Bradley

LENNON, P. J.

The defendant in this case was charged with the crime of murder. Upon his trial he was convicted of

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murder in the first degree, and subsequently sentenced to life imprisonment in the state prison. He has appealed from the judgment, and from an order denying him a new trial.

The defendant did not take the witness stand in his own behalf, and the case was submitted to the jury upon his plea of not guilty,- and the evidence adduced by the people.

The facts of the case upon which the people secured a conviction are briefly as follows: On the day of the homicide, the defendant, in company with a companion, encountered the deceased, a special policeman, at the corner of Bast Twelfth Street and Thirteenth Avenue, in the city of Oakland. The deceased, who was in plain clothes and without any insignia of his office, halted the defendant and his companion with the command “Come here.” The minor circumstances attending the meeting of the defendant and the deceased, as detailed by the companion of the defendant, need not be narrated. It will suffice to say that apparently they aroused the suspicions of the deceased as to the character of the defendant, and that a partial search of the defendant by the deceased resulted in the discovery of an ordinary head cap in the pocket of the defendant. The defendant’s possession of this cap, his explanation of how he became possessed of it, and his conduct generally evidently confirmed the suspicion existing in the mind of the deceased which undoubtedly had impelled him to hail and halt the defendant in the first instance. Finally, the deceased said to the defendant, “You are under arrest,” or “Come with me to the lock-up.” The defendant at first submitted to arrest, and proceeded quietly with the deceased for a short distance, until they came to an alley, whereupon the defendant suddenly turned into the alley and immediately cried out to the deceased, “Come on and have it out.” Without more ado the defendant fired two shots from a revolver at the deceased, both of which struck the deceased and killed him instantly. The search of the defendant was accomplished by the deceased without resorting to any more force than was necessary to unbutton the coat of the defendant ; and the evidence before us does not disclose that the deceased at any time before, during, or after the arrest resorted to even a display of his club or pistol for the purpose of enforcing his authority or preventing the escape of the defendant.