People v. Owens

GAROUTTE,J.

—Defendant has been convicted of the crime of murder in the first degree, with the death penalty affixed. He now appeals from the judgment and order denying his motion for a new trial. The evidence showing that defendant fired the fatal shot is uncontradicted, and insanity is relied upon as a defense.

Some claim is made by counsel that the evidence on the subject of defendant’s insanity is such as to justify this court in setting aside the verdict as matter of law. But this claim

[471]

cannot be maintained for a moment. While the motive for the commission of the homicide is not plainly manifest from the evidence, yet the establishment of a' motive is not at all essential as an element necessary to justify a conviction. The presence or absence of motive is simply a circumstance in each particular case, sometimes weak and sometimes strong, going to the question of guilt or innocence.

(People

v.

Durrant,

116 Cal. 179.)

Defendant complains that his case was transferred from one department of the superior court to the other a very short time before the hour set for trial. We know of no law violated by such an order of transfer. And if the transfer was made under an exercise of discretion upon the part of the judge or the court, we see no abuse of that discretion. Indeed, it is not established by the record that defendant suffered any injury by the reassignment of his case. He also complains that he was allowed only thirteen minutes in which to prepare the order of his defense after the prosecution had rested its case. An allowance of any period of time is entirely a matter of discretion upon the part of the trial court, and in the absence of a showing of an abuse of that discretion, this court will not interfere. Here there is no showing whatever.

The name of the defendant was omitted from the charging part of the certified copy of the information at the time of his arraignment. He now complains because his demurrer to the information was overruled. The information upon which defendant was arraigned was in due form, and the demurrer was properly overruled. If the copy given to defendant was defective, his remedy for the defect was not by demurrer; for a demurrer must be directed to defects in the information, and not to defects in the copy. For the same reason the motion in arrest of judgment was properly denied.