People v. Choy Ah Sing
Before: Foote
Synopsis
Criminal Law— Assault with Deadly Weapon — Flight op Accused— Conflicting Evidence — Instruction. —Upon trial for an assault with a deadly weapon, where the evidence is conflicting as to whether the flight of the accused, after the assault, was to avoid friends of the assaulted person, who were chasing him, or was caused by a consciousness of guilt, it is for the jury to determine the character of the flight; and an instruction that such flight was a circumstance tending to establish guilt, to be considered with other circumstances and the testimony in the case, though not alone sufficient to justify a verdict of guilty, is erroneous, as assuming that the flight was of a kind which tended to establish guilt, and in effect excluding the defendant’s evidence from the jury.
Id. — Self-defense — Reasonable Doubt — Instruction. — An instruction that “it is not necessary that the particulars of the transaction given in evidence by the defendant to sustain a plea of self-defense should be sufficient to satisfy the minds of the jury; it is sufficient if they raise a reasonable doubt in the minds of the jurors as to the guilt of the defendant, and if they do raise such reasonable doubt, then the defendant is entitled to an acquittal,” while not so clear as it might have been, contains no prejudicial error, in view of the last clause, which states the correct rule. Id. —'Evidence— Attempt to Bribe Prosecuting Witness.—It is error to pennit the prosecuting witness to testify that he had been approached by persons other than the defendant or his authorized agents, who offered him a bribe not to prosecute the defendant, and to have the prosecution dismissed, if the prosecution does not offer to connect the defendant with it, but is allowed to question the prosecuting witness, against the objection of the defendant, in such a way that the acts of any person whatever, though unauthorized, could be given in evidence.
Id. — Attempt of Third Parties to Settle Prosecution. — Evidence is inadmissible as to what the cousin of the prosecuting witness had done and said with a view to getting money from a witness for the defendant to settle the case.
Foote, C. The defendant was convicted of an assault With a deadly weapon; from the judgment in the prem[277]ises, and an order denying a new trial, this appeal is prosecuted.
The first ground of error alleged is, that the court instructed the jury wrongfully with reference to the running away of the defendant, after the striking of the blow with a deadly weapon, which he was found, by the jury, to have feloniously inflicted upon the person of one Ah Mow. The part of the charge of the court to which objection is made reads as follows: “ The flight of the defendant is a circumstance tending to establish his guilt, but is not, of itself alone, sufficient to justify a verdict of guilty. The jury may take the evidence of such flight into consideration in connection with the other circumstances and the testimony in the case.”
The record shows that upon the trial there was evidence of the running away of the defendant from the place where he had stricken the prosecuting witness, Ah Mow, with an iron bar; but while the prosecution contended that this running away was a flight from the scene, as of one guilty of the crime charged, the defendant claimed in his testimony that he did so to avoid the friends of Ah Mow, who were chasing the former. Such being the facts in evidence,of a conflicting nature as to the character of the flight, it was for the jury to say whether it was a flight such as tended to show guilt, or a flight merely to avoid injury. The instruction assumes that it was a flight of the defendant, of a kind which tended to establish his guilt. This was, under the facts of this case, an instruction which in effect excluded the defendant’s account of the nature of his running away from the jury, and was therefore erroneous.
Another portion of the charge to which the defendant makes objection is to be found in the transcript at folios 47 and 48.
The counsel for defendant contends that “it is not necessary that the particulars of the transaction given in evidence by the defendant to sustain the plea of self-[278]defense should be sufficient to satisfy the minds of the jury. It is sufficient if they raise a reasonable doubt in the minds of the jurors as to the guilt of the defendant; and if they do raise such reasonable doubt, then the defendant is entitled to an acquittal.”
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