People v. Schafer

WASTE, C. J.

Appellant was charged with the crime of murder. It was the claim of the prosecution at the trial that the decedent, a woman about thirty-one years of age, died as the result of a miscarriage produced by criminal means forbidden by section 274 of the Penal Code, and that the unlawful means were chargeable against appellant. Prom the judgment of conviction of murder in the second degree, and from the order denying a motion for a new trial, this appeal is taken.

Some time in the early part of 1924 the decedent, being in serious trouble, consulted the appellant, who refused to assist her. On the night of April 23, following, the decedent again went to the home of appellant, remaining all night. Police officers called to the house the next morning found the decedent lying on a couch dead. The autopsy surgeon testified that he examined the body at the city morgue. He found that death had been caused by hemorrhage of the uterine cavity as the result of an abortion which had been performed within a few hours before the death of the woman, and in his opinion she had been dead but two or three hours at the time he made the examination. He testified that while he could not state by what means the abortion was actually caused, the entire foetus had been re

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moved; there was no clotting of blood; the tissues were freshly bleeding; and only a bit of the membrane of pregnancy was left. Prior to death there had been a considerable amount of blood lost which left the body pallid. This evidence was sufficient to establish the

corpus delicti,

viz., that the woman was dead and that her death had been caused by unlawful means.

(People

v.

Wright,

167 Cal. 1, 3 [138 Pac. 349].) It is contended that the evidence was not sufficient to sustain the verdict for the reason, it is claimed, that it does not establish that the unlawful means which occasioned the decedent’s death were chargeable against appellant.

The police officers who were called to the house on the morning of decedent’s death described the condition of the body when found, and told of the blood on the decedent’s clothing and on the couch on which she lay. They testified that the kitchen of the flat had “been lately scrubbed up and it was still wet,” and in the stove were what appeared to be ashes of rolled cloth, which had been recently burned. On being taken to the police station to be interrogated concerning the death of the decedent appellant signed two written statements. In them she stated that she did not perform an operation upon the decedent and that she did not know who did. In the first statement the appellant related that the decedent came to her house some time before her death, seeking her help, and ‘ said that she understood that I would perform an abortion on her, but I told her I was not doing that any more since I got in trouble.” In the other statement the appellant told how the decedent' came to her home the night before her death and she (appellant) gave the decedent a douche “composed of a solution made out of Indian weed boiled up in a tea and a little camphor added. This tea was given for the purpose of bringing her-around.” Appellant and decedent slept that night in the same bed. The decedent remained in bed until about 9 o’clock the next morning, when she went to the bathroom, where she fell. Appellant assisted her to a couch, and after endeavoring to call a physician, notified the emergency hospital. When the ambulance arrived the woman was dead. One of the policemen testified that on the afternoon of April 24th the appellant was taken to her home where “she produced a douche bag with a nozzle on it which she said had been used in performing the abortion.” There was also found, according