People v. Watanebe

STURTEVANT, J.

The district attorney filed an information against the defendant charging him with the crime of murder. The defendant pleaded not guilty. A trial was had before the court sitting with a jury. The jury returned a verdict finding the defendant guilty of murder in the second degree. The defendant made a motion for a new trial. The motion was denied and the defendant appealed from the judgment and the order denying his motion. He has brought up a typewritten record of all the proceedings.

The record discloses that the above-mentioned trial was the second trial of the defendant for the alleged offense.

It was the theory of the prosecution that the defendant performed an illegal operation on the body of Beatrice New-land and as a result of that operation she died.

The defendant was at the time of the alleged offense a licensed druggist conducting a drug-store near the corner of Eighth and Franklin Streets in the city of Oakland. The decedent resided in the same city.

On the trial the prosecution called a large number of witnesses and each one was examined and cross-examined. It introduced a large number of exhibits. Among others it introduced a number of pieces of surgical apparatus which the prosecution had obtained from one of the rooms in the flat of the defendant, upstairs over his drug-store. It also introduced in evidence some surgical apparatus which it located in a bundle in the possession of C. Kowana, another Japanese, who conducted a candy-store around the corner.

Immediately after the prosecution closed its case the defendant took the stand in his own behalf. He testified to many facts, among others^ that he did not perform the

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operation. He did not testify regarding any conversations with Madam Mays, the proprietress of a beauty-shop in Oakland. On cross-examination the district attorney propounded many questions to the defendant regarding his conversations with Madam Mays. The defendant quotes the record and claims that numerous errors were committed by the trial court in overruling his objections based on the ground that the subject matter was not within proper bounds of cross-examination. The subjects objected to were within the bounds of proper cross-examination of a defendant.