People v. McCoy

McKee, J. The defendant in this case, having been convicted of the crime of manslaughter, appealed from the judgment of conviction, and from an order denying his motion for a new trial.

The first assignment of error is that the verdict returned by the jury and the judgment rendered by the court are void, because the defendant did not personally plead to the information, and in consequence there were no issues raised upctn which he could be tried and convicted.

But the record shows that the defendant was regularly arraigned; that upon his arraignment, he was asked if he pleaded guilty or not guilty, and that personally he made no answer; but in his presence, his attorney, answering, said, “We plead not guilty.” Whereupon, the defendant still standing mute, the clerk of the court made an entry in the minutes of the court, in the following words, namely: “ Defendant pleads not guilty of the offense charged in the information, and by consent of all parties the cause is set for trial on the 20th of October, 1885."

The plea of the defendant as it was formulated for him by his attorney was therefore regularly entered upon the minutes. He consented to it, and in the form in which it was made we cannot see that any of the substantial rights of the defendant were in any way prejudiced. Besides, if the refusal of the defendant to answer in person was equivalent to a refusal to plead to the information, the law cast upon the court the duty of having entered on the minutes of the court a plea of not guilty. (Pen. Code, sec. 1024.) That was in effect done, and thereby issues were raised according to law, upon which the defendant was legally tried and convicted.

The next assignment of error is that the court refused, at defendant’s request, to give the jury the following instruction: “A witness false in one part of his testimony is to be distrusted in all.”

[397]Unquestionably, that is a plain legal proposition which a court is bound by law to give to a jury on all proper occasions. (Code Civ. Proc., secs. 20, 61; White v. Disher, 67 Cal. 402; Brown v. Griffith, 70 Cal. 14.) But the court in its charge to the jury had substantially given the proposition to them as law; and as we have repeatedly held, a court is not bound to repeat any of its instructions.

Lastly, the refusal of the court to grant a new trial is assigned as error.