People v. Button

Citations

• 4 Cal. Unrep. 876
• 38 P. 200
• 1894 Cal. LEXIS 1251

Syllabus

<p>Homicide — Self-defense—Withdrawal from Combat.—Penal Code, section 197, provides that to constitute justifiable homicide, if defendant was the assailant in a mortal combat, he must in good faith have endeavored to decline any further struggle before the homicide was committed. Held, that where one accused of murder commenced the combat, but in good faith tried to withdraw before the homicide, and was followed by deceased, who continued the combat, the fact that deceased, by reason of injuries sustained at defendant’s hands, was unable to realize that defendant sought to withdraw, does not limit the right of defendant to claim that the killing was done in self-defense.</p> <p>Homicide—Self-defense—Withdrawal from Combat.—If it was defendant’s purpose in good faith to withdraw from the combat, and he endeavored to do so, it is not necessary to his justification that the conflict should have actually ceased, or that there should have been such an interval as would divide it into two different combats.</p>