People v. Saunders

KERRIGAN, J.

The defendant was accused by information of the crime of arson of the first degree. He was tried and convicted as charged. He moved for a new trial, which was denied, and he was thereupon sentenced to imprisonment in the state prison for the term of twenty years. This appeal is prosecuted from the judgment and from the order denying defendant’s motion for a new trial.

Defendant contends that the evidence is insufficient to support the verdict.

The record is long, but the facts, very briefly, are as follows : The defendant had been in the employ of the St. Luke’s Hospital as a porter for about two weeks when, on November 16, 1909, being under the influence of liquor, and being moreover generally unsatisfactory to the management of the hospital, he was discharged by the matron. Although discharged at about 5 o’clock in the afternoon of that day and repeatedly requested thereafter to leave the premises, he did not do so, and was arrested and removed by police officers at about 12

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o ’clock that night. On the way to- the police station he abused, the doctors and nurses of the hospital, and told the officer in charge of the patrol'wagon that he would “get even.” The next day, upon being released from custody, he went back to the hospital, and after being ordered away he called at the offices of two of the San Francisco daily morning newspapers and endeavored to have them publish a statement that the dead were being robbed at St. Luke’s Hospital. On the way to these offices he met Rev. Dr. Shields, head of one of the departments of the hospital, and said, “I am sorry to have to do it, but you will see it all in the papers in the morning.” His story was refused publication. He returned to the hospital that evening at about 11:30. The police department was again appealed to, but police officers did not arrive at the hospital until somewhere between 1 and 2 o’clock, whereupon they searched the premises but did not find the defendant. At 3:45 A. M. of November 18, 1909, a fire occurred in the basement of that wing of the hospital called the Mills building, in which eighteen patients were at that time confined, who all, however, fortunately escaped unharmed. Defendant was seen by several witnesses both just before and just after the fire in the neighborhood of the hospital. Yet in a letter to one of the nurses, and in a statement to the fire marshal in the presence of several police officers, he denied that he was in that vicinity at either of those times. In his statement to the fire marshal he attempted to account for his whereabouts on the night of the 17th of November, but we think the jury were fully justified in disbelieving him. The condition of the basement of the Mills building shows that the fire in all probability was of incendiary origin.