People v. Evans

California Supreme Court Apr 6, 1899 No. Crim. No. 454Published

Before: Garoutte, Temple

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Holding. The court held that an ambiguous jury instruction regarding malice was not prejudicially erroneous when read in the context of other correct instructions, and that challenges to jurors for bias and non-citizenship were properly denied.

Issues

Whether a jury instruction that potentially omitted the element of malice was cured by other instructions defining murder.
Whether the trial court's denial of a challenge for actual bias is reviewable as a matter of law or fact.
Whether a defendant can challenge a juror's citizenship status for the first time after a verdict is rendered.

Disposition. affirmed

Quotations verified verbatim against the opinion

“We are clear that the question as presented by this record is not one of law, but of fact.”

“After verdict is rendered it is too late to raise for the first time the question now presented.”

Synopsis

Criminal Law—Murder—Malice—Instructions.—An unusual instruction upon the subject of murder, making an absence of considerable provocation, an alternative of malice aforethought, though not commendable, is not ground of reversal, when the law upon the subject is elsewhere fully given, and malice aforethought as a necessary element of murder is clearly declared, so that the jury could not have been misled.

Id.—Jury—Challenges for Actual Bias—Exception—Review upon Appeal.—Challenges to jurors upon the ground of actual bias by a defendant who has exhausted his peremptory challenges, are the subject of exception, and may be reviewed upon appeal, where the question comes before this court as matter of law, but the decision of the trial court will not be disturbed where the question presented is one of fact, or where a finding by the court either way upon the challenge would have support in the evidence.

Id.—Disqualification of Jubok—Objection upon Appeal.—An objection to the disqualification of a juror, upon the ground that he was not a citizen of the United States, cannot be urged for the first time upon appeal.

Opinion — Garoutte

GAROUTTE, J. The defendant has been convicted of the crime of murder and sentenced to imprisonment for life. He now appeals to this court.

The following instruction given to the jury is assailed as containing an unsound declaration of law: “If the jury believe from the evidence that the defendant, with malice aforethought, or without considerable provocation, inflicted a wound upon Robert Holland, and that Robert Holland died from the wound so inflicted by the defendant, and that there was no justification for the infliction of said wound, the defendant must take the whole consequence of his wrongful act, and the jury find him guilty of murder.” We 'have been referred to no instruction in the reports of this state couched in language at all similar to the foregoing, and we apprehend there is none. It has been suggested by this court upon many occasions in the past that it is always dangerous to attempt the statement of well-established principles of law in new and different ways. Approved instructions bearing upon the question of malice -in cases of murder may he found in the reports of this state by the score. It would have been .much better to have followed the lines there marked out. It is always the safer, and therefore the better, [208]course, for trial judges to follow the broad and well-traveled road laid out by the decisions this court rather than to risk the danger of traveling upon crooked and unknown paths. These suggestions have been made many times; yet thus far they appear to have fallen upon stony places, for they have brought forth no fruit.

The foregoing instruction has called for careful consideration. It has given the court much thought. Upon first inspection, it would seem that the giving of it demanded a new trial of the case, but it has been finally concluded to the contrary. The court has arrived at this conclusion in view :of the many other instructions bearing upon the question of malice which are found in the charge and which are legally sound. Malice aforethought, as a necessary element of murder, is clearly declared. The jury are told that there is no such thing as murder unless malice aforethought is present in the mind of the defendant at the time of the killing. The jury are instructed: “Murder is the unlawful killing of a human -being with malice aforethought. If you find that the defendant killed the deceased, then you must determine if the killing was with malice aforethought, for this is the grand criterion -that distinguishes murder from other killing, -and this malice aforethought is not merely a spite or malevolence to'the deceased in particular, but is an evil design in general.” It is then declared that malice is express “when there is manifested -a deliberate intention unlawfully to take away the life of a fellow-creature. It is implied when no considerable provocation -appears, or where the circumstances attending the killing show -an abandoned and malignant heart.” In another portion of the charge -the jury are told: “The presence or absence of malice is the distinguishing feature between murder and manslaughter. If malice enters into the unlawful act by which death is caused, it is murder; hut, if malice be wanting, it is but manslaughter.” In view of these instructions, which appear to cover every phase of the law as to malice in cases of murder, it is -apparent that the jury could not have been misled by the instruction of which complaint is made.

People v. Evans

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Synopsis

Opinion — Garoutte

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Dissent — Temple

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