People v. Walters
Before: Beatty
Synopsis
Ceiminal Law—Homicide—Evidence — Family Feud — Cotemporaneous Killing of Mother of Deceased—Proof of Malice. —Upon the trial of a defendant charged with murder, where it appeared that there had been a long and bitter family feud between the family of the deceased and that of the defendant, and that at the time of the homicide, the mother of the deceased was with him, evidence of the shooting of the mother by the defendant immediately after the shooting of her son is admissible as tending to show the malicious motives of the defendant, and to disprove the claim of self-defense.
Id.—Wounds upon Body of Mother—Blood upon Her Person.—In such case, evidence of surgeons as to the number and position of the wounds on the body of the mother is admissible as tending to show that the defendant shot at her with deadly aim; as is also the evidence of another witness that, when he saw the mother at the scene of the shooting shortly after it occurred, she was covered with blood from head to foot.
Id. — Proof of Distinct Offense — Offense Part of Same Transaction — Prejudice of Defendant.—Upon the trial of a person charged with one offense, proof of another and distinct offense is ordinarily inadmissible, when it has no tendency to establish the offense charged; yet, whenever the case is such that proof of one crime tends to prove any fact material in the trial of another, and in any case where two persons are murdered or assaulted at the same time, and as part of the same transaction, such proof is admissible, and the fact that it may tend to prejudice the defendant in the minds of the jurors is no ground for its exclusion.
Id. — Supply of Place of District Attorney—Associate Counsel—Construction of Penal Code — Formal Order of Court. — Section 1130 of the Penal Code, providing for the supplying of the place of the district attorney when for any reason he cannot conduct the prosecution, is not exclusive, and if his place is otherwise supplied by associate counsel employed to conduct the prosecution, who are guilty of no misconduct prejudicial to the defendant, he cannot be heard to object that such counsel bad not been regularly and formally authorized so to do by an order of the court entered in the minutes in pursuance of that section.
Id.—Misleading Instruction. —Where an instruction asked for by a defendant in a criminal proceeding, and refused by the court, is so broad in its terms as to be misleading, if not positively erroneous, and so far as correct, is given with the necessary qualifications in another instruction allowed by the court, no error is committed in the refusal to give it as asked.
Beatty, C. J. The defendant was charged with the murder of one Ira Wall, and was convicted of murder in the second degree. On the trial in the superior court evidence was admitted over the defendant’s objection to the effect that at the time of the homicide, Ira Wall and his mother were together, and immediately after shooting and killing Ira Wall with one barrel of his shot-gun the defendant fired with the other barrel upon Mrs. Wall and wounded her.
Before judgment the defendant moved for a new trial upon the following grounds: “1. That the court has misdirected the jury in matters of law, and has erred in the decisions of questions of law arising during the course of the trial. 2. That the verdict is contrary to the law. 3. That said verdict is contrary to the evidence.”
After argument the court made and entered the following order: “Defendant’s motion for a new trial, heretofore submitted, is granted upon the ground that court erred in admitting evidence regarding the shooting of Mrs. Wall, and on that ground only, and denied as to the other grounds of said motion, and the prosecution excepts.”
From this order the People appeal, contending that the several rulings of the court admitting evidence relating to the shooting of Mrs. Wall were free from error, and, consequently, that the order was wholly unwarranted. The defendant contends that the order granting a new trial is not only sustained by the [140]ground upon which the action of the court was expressly based, but that it should have been granted upon other grounds.
In order to a proper consideration of the case, a brief statement of the leading facts is necessary: There was a'controversy of some years standing between the Wall and the Walters families over the right to divert and use the Avaters of a small stream for the purpose of irrigating their respective lands., The Walls seem to have been the first appropriators, but the extent of their appropriation aud use seems to have been disputed by the defendant and his two brothers, and there were mutual interferences in the way of turning the Avater in and out of the irrigating ditches of the parties. On one occasion, Avlien several of the Walls—brothers and sisters — Avere present, a brother of the defendant took a gun from the hands of Ira Wall’s sister, and in attempting to break it caused it to be accidentally discharged, inflicting upon himself a mortal wound. Subsequently a suit was commenced by the Walls against the defendant, in which a preliminary injunction Avas issued restraining him from interfering with the water; but this order was so modified as to permit the parties, pending the litigation, to use the water alternately four days at a time. Afterwards the action was tried and decided in favor of the Walls. Pending his motion for a new trial the defendant claimed the right to use the water alternately with the Walls, four days at a time, according to the modification of the preliminary injunction, and having turned the water from the Walls’ ditch into his own, armed himself with a pistol and shot-gun and took his station at the point of diversion apparently for the purpose of preventing any interference on the part of the Walls. During the night of August 10, 1892, he slept on the ground a few feet from the ditch, and was still in bed between five and six o’clock on the morning of the 11th when Ira Wall, his mother, and a boy of sixteen, named Carver Peck, came down the canyon along the road from the Wall residence to the town of Elsinore. Mrs. Wall was in a buggy on her Avay to Elsinore; Ira Wall and Peck were on foot and each had a shovel. None of them were armed. Mrs. Wall stopped her buggy about thirty feet short of the point at which the Walters’ ditch crossed the road. Ira Wall and Peck went to the ditch and commenced placing some stones in it
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