People v. Clementshaw

Appeal from a judgment of conviction in the Superior Court of the City and County of San Francisco. Freelon, J.

The defendant was indicted for perjury, alleged to have been committed in testimony given by him before the Coroner’s inquest held over the body of Charles de Young. The instructions asked by the defendant, and refused by the Court, were to the effect that the jury must be satisfied that the alleged false statements must have been made willfully and corruptly, and also to the effect that something further was required to convict, than simply a- preponderance of evidence. These instructions, however, were in effect fully given in the other instructions and in the charge of the Court. The following seems to be the portion of the charge objected to: “Now, gentlemen of the jury, I charge you as a matter of law, that if the testimony set out in the information showed or tended to show the manner and means, the facts and the circumstances attending the death of Charles de Young, showed or tended to show that he came to his death by criminal means, showed or tended to show whether the act by which he was killed was excusable or justifiable or not; if the testimony set out in the information here showed or tended to show these facts, or either of them, that then the testimony was material to the issue that was legally before the Coroner’s inquest.”