People v. Swearningen (1914) · DecisionDepot

People v. Swearningen

Name: California Superior Court Tentative Rulings
Creator: DecisionDepot
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

California Supreme Court Jun 18, 1914 No. Crim. No. 1819.Published

Before: Lorigan

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Holding. The court held that a jury instruction regarding circumstantial evidence, when read in the context of other instructions defining reasonable doubt, did not mislead the jury, and that minor trial errors regarding evidence and prosecutorial conduct were not prejudicial.

Issues

Whether a jury instruction stating that a defendant may be convicted 'although the fact be surrounded, in a degree by doubt' was erroneous.
Whether the prosecution's unsuccessful attempt to prove a conspiracy prejudiced the defendant.
Whether a remark by the district attorney constituted reversible misconduct.

Disposition. affirmed

Quotations verified verbatim against the opinion

“The judgment and order appealed from are affirmed.”

Synopsis

The facts are stated in the opinion of the court.

LORIGAN, J.

Under section 246 of the Penal Code, held to be constitutional by this court in

People

Finley,

153 Cal. 59, [94 Pac. 248], and afSrmed by the supreme court of the United States in the same

case—Finley

State of California,

222 U. S. 28, [56 L. Ed. 75, 32 Sup. Ct. Rep. 13], the appellant was prosecuted by information charging him while undergoing a sentence for life imprisonment in the state prison at Folsom with having committed with malice aforethought an assault with a deadly weapon 'upon one William Robinson. He was tried and convicted and, as the section provides shall be done upon conviction of such offense, sentence of death was imposed upon him. He appeals from the judgment and from an order denying his motion for a new trial.

[55]

The evidence shows that on August 25, 1912, defendant and Robinson, both prisoners at Folsom, the former undergoing a life term for murder, were in the main corridor of the prison where Robinson was reading a paper; that without any warning or any altercation between them defendant assaulted Robinson with a knife, inflicting grievous wounds upon his side, back and arms and was persisting in his attack when restrained by one of the prison guards. The reason for the attack as stated by the defendant to the officers of the prison immediately after the assault was that Robinson had informed on one of the other prisoners with reference to a contemplated effort to escape and he wanted to teach him a lesson.

No question is made of the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain the verdict but on behalf" of the appellant it is urged for a reversal that the court erred in one of its instructions to the jury and in several particulars erred in its rulings upon the admissibility of evidence. Misconduct on the part of the district attorney is also assigned as error warranting a reversal.

The instruction claimed to be erroneous was proposed by the prosecution and given by the court. It is as follows:

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without any explanation on the part of the court as to what was meant by it, told the jury, in effect, and contrary to well established principles of law, that if there was a degree of doubt they must convict the defendant. While this instruction if it stood alone might be open to the criticism that it did not define what does and what does not constitute reasonable doubt, a distinction evidently contemplated by the language of the instruction, this was so clearly defined by other instructions previously given in connection with the one under consideration that the jury could not have but understood what the court meant by the language it employed. The court had already instructed them on the subject of “reasonable doubt”; had given them the old and approved instruction clearly and explicitly defining it; that it consisted of a doubt of the guilt of the accused existing after a full comparison and consideration of all the evidence in the case. It further instructed them, as is usual, that the term “reasonable doubt” did not mean every possible or fanciful doubt which might be suggested to the minds of the jurors; that a mere surmise or conjecture did not constitute “reasonable doubt,” and used similar and further language in marking the distinction between what amounted to reasonable doubt and what did not. With these instructions given on the matter of “doubt,” reasonable or otherwise, the instruction in question was given, and it is to be considered as the court intended it should and as the jury naturally would consider and interpret it, in connection with and in the light of the previous instructions on the matters referred to in it. It will be observed that the instruction attacked was dealing with two classes of evidence which might be considered by the jury—direct or positive evidence and circumstantial evidence—and correctly informed them in the opening sentence of the instruction that either class “if sufficiently strong to establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty” would lawfully warrant a jury in finding one accused of crime guilty. Then, after defining direct or positive evidence and also circumstantial evidence, the court closed the instruction on those subjects with the direction as to the duty of the jury with respect to either class of evidence and used the language which appellant criticizes. But taking the entire latter portion of the instruction in the light of previous definitions the jury could not have misunderstood what was meant by it. They were again

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Synopsis

LORIGAN, J.

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