People v. Brown

California Supreme Court Jul 15, 1881 No. No. 10,601Published

Before: McKee, McKinstry, Ross

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Holding. The court held that a defendant who participates in an armed conspiracy to commit crimes is criminally liable for a murder committed by any co-conspirator in furtherance of that common design, regardless of whether the defendant personally fired the fatal shot.

Issues

Whether a warrant of arrest issued under fictitious names was admissible in evidence.
Whether the testimony of an accomplice regarding a conspiracy to commit crimes was admissible.
Whether a defendant is liable for a murder committed by a co-conspirator while lying in ambush.
Whether the trial court erred in its jury instructions and evidentiary rulings regarding the circumstances of the killing.

Disposition. affirmed

Quotations verified verbatim against the opinion

“Being in ambush, co-operating with each other for the purpose of executing or attempting to execute their unlawful enterprise, the defendant is guilty of the homicidal act, whether it was committed by his hands or the hands of any of his confederates.”

“If, therefore, while armed and lying in ambush for the purpose of executing a common design, one conspirator commits murder, it is murder committed in furtherance of the common design, not only by him who commits the crime with his own hands, but in all who enter with or take part in the execution of the purpose for which they confederated together.”

Synopsis

Appeal from a judgment of conviction and from a motion denying a new trial in the Superior Court of the County of Sonoma, Pressley, J.

The following were the instructions asked by the defendant and refused by the Court:

“ 1. I instruct you that the warrant of arrest under which the constable and posse were acting at the time of the shooting of Wright was void, and did not authorize said constable to arrest or attempt the arrest of defendant.

“ 2. I instruct you that the complaint filed before the Justice of the Peace, and which has been introduced in evidence in this case, charges a misdemeanor, and that an officer has no right to arrest a party for a misdemeanor without a valid warrant, unless it was committed in the presence of such officer.

“ 3. I instruct you that in the attempt to arrest the defendant, if such attempt was made, the said officers and posse were acting without authority of law; and if the killing was done by the defendant in resisting such attempted arrest, then you can not find him guilty of any crime above the grade of manslaughter.

“ 4. I instruct you, in no event is an officer authorized to make use of guns or pistols in arresting a party for a misdemeanor.”

The following is the 10th instruction referred to in the opinion:

“ 10. If you believe from the evidence that the defendant Brown and those with him were encamped in the woods, and engaged in no unlawful acts when the constable and posse approached them, and that the constable and posse advanced with guns and weapons [and did not disclose their official character or purpose], and the defendant was ignorant of the official character of the constable and the object of the posse, and mistaking the purpose of said constable and posse approaching, and being apprehensive and having reasonable grounds to believe that the constable and posse were advancing to kill or do him great bodily injury, then the defendant wras authorized to act upon such reasonable apprehension and put himself upon the defensive, the defendant cannot be convicted of murder, even though Billings, one of the party, shot and killed the deceased.”

This instruction was modified by striking out the words in brackets.

The Court in its charge read from the Penal Code, sections 187, 188, 189, 190,192, 194, 971, and 972; and further instructed the jury as follows:

“ If you believe from the testimony beyond a reasonable doubt, that Billings and Brown, the defendant, without lawful excuse, fired into a party of which the deceased was one, and when they so fired, they were acting in concert, and that a shot fired by Billings killed the deceased, the fact that Billings’ shot killed the deceased would be no justification for Brown. In other words, if they (Brown and Billings) were acting in concert in the shooting, and the man whose shot actually took life, would under the circumstances be guilty of murder in any degree, all who were by design acting in concert in such shooting would be equally guilty. .

Opinion — McKee

McKee, J.: The defendant, jointly with Carr, Gaunce, Billings, and Wheeler, was indicted for the murder of William- Wright, in Mendocino County, on October 15, 1879, and was, upon a separate trial, convicted of murder of the first degree, and sentenced to be hanged. From the judgment he has appealed, and it is contended in his behalf that his conviction was illegal: 1. Because the Court, on the trial of the case, erred in admitting in evidence against him a warrant of arrest which purported to have been issued against all the defendants by fictitious names, but which, on its face, was i and void; 2. In admitting in evidence the testimony of defendant Carr, an accomplice, who had been allowed to turn State’s evidence, to prove a conspiracy between the defendants to commit crimes against the people of Mendocino [350]County; 3. In admitting in evidence the acts and declarations of some of the alleged conspirators; 4. In refusing and giving certain instructions to the jury upon the subject; and, 5. In certain errors of the law committed at the trial.

1. The evidence is claimed to have been inadmissible, and the instructions given improper, upon the grounds that the one was irrelevant and immaterial, and the other erroneous, because it appeared that the deceased was killed while engaged in an unlawful attempt to arrest the defendants, under the illegal warrant of arrest, and not in pursuance of any conspiracy.

But, assuming it to be true that the deceased was killed under such circumstances, there was no error committed in admitting in evidence the warrant of arrest. No .objection had been made to the complaint upon which the warrant was issued, and the warrant itself was, in connection therewith, admissible as part of the circumstances in connection with the other circumstances, attending the killing, and as tending to reduce the crime of which the defendant was accused, to manslaughter. Where persons have authority to arrest, and are resisted and killed in the proper exercise of such authority, the homicide is murder in all who take part in such resistance. But, if the process be defective in the frame of it, as if there was mistake in the name of the person on whom it is executed, or if the name of such person, or of the officer, be inserted without authority, or after the issuing of the process, or if the officer exceed his authority, the killing of the officer in such case by the party would be manslaughter only. (2 Archb. Crim. L. 242; Roscoe’s Crim. Ev. 698.)

People v. Brown

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Synopsis

Opinion — McKee

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Concurrence — Ross

Concurrence — McKinstry

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