People v. Aguirre

SHENK, J. This is an appeal from a judgment imposing the death penalty and from an order denying a motion for a new trial.

On Sunday, July 25, 1937, at 8:30 P. M., the defendant, a Mexican, 29 years of age, killed Gabriel Contreras, also a Mexican, 38 years of age, by shooting him in the head with a revolver. The homicide occurred at the ranch home of the deceased located in a sparsely settled section of the desert country about three miles from the town of Thermal in the [250]Coachella Valley. The deceased was living at his ranch place with his four children, the oldest being twelve years of age, and with the mother of his children, Pilar Gonzales, also known as Pilar Contreras. The deceased and Pilar had lived together as husband and wife since 1925, although no civil marriage ceremony had been performed.

The deceased had moved with his family from Oasis to the ranch near Thermal about one year before the homicide. Shortly thereafter the defendant stopped at that ranch in search of a place to live, whereupon arrangements were made under which the defendant was to live with the deceased and his family while he worked for the deceased or in the vicinity. The defendant agreed to the payment of $3 a week for his room and board. After the defendant had lived at the Contreras home about eight months he left at the request of Contreras and went to live on the property of Fabian Salgado located about a third of a mile from the Contreras place. The defendant there lived in a habitation which he constructed for himself in the brush near the house of Salgado at whose place he ate his meals. The defendant was living on the Salgado place on July 25/ 1937, the date of the homicide.

Not long after the defendant moved into the home of the deceased he established an intimate relationship with Pilar, or Mrs. Contreras, as the mother of deceased’s children was generally known. This intimacy was carried on at the home of the deceased • commencing in January, 1937, and ending on the Friday before the Sunday of the homicide. In March Mrs. Contreras notified the defendant that she was pregnant. The defendant acknowledged responsibility for the woman’s condition. "When she was about five months’ pregnant he expressed to a near-by rancher his pleasure at the prospect of having offspring and planned with Mrs. Contreras to leave the home and children of the deceased and to depart for Arizona.

During the time that the defendant was living at the deceased’s place the defendant occasionally went to Indio with Salgado in the latter’s truck and there purchased provisions for the deceased, which provisions were hauled in that truck to the deceased’s home. On the late afternoon of the day of the homicide the defendant went to the deceased’s place and told the deceased that it would be only just and right that he, the deceased, should pay Salgado for hauling provisions