People v. Geiger

Citations

• 116 Cal. 440
• 48 P. 389
• 1897 Cal. LEXIS 568

Syllabus

<p>Criminal Law—Trial—Stay of Proceedings—Insanity of Defendant ■—Escape from Asylum—Certificate of Recovery.—Upon the trial of a defendant accused of crime, a motion to stay proceedings on the ground that the defendant had been regularly committed to an asylum as an insane person, and had not been legally discharged therefrom, and was then insane, is properly denied, .although it appeared that defendant had escaped from the asylum, where it also appeared that the resident physician of the asylum had shortly after his escape caused an appropriate record to be made of his recovery, and the prior escape of the defendant from the asylum is no ground for impeaching the determination of his recovery by competent authority, nor is his presence at the asylum a condition of the valid exercise of the power to discharge him.</p> <p>Id. —Submission of Question of Present Sanity—-Insufficient Showing.—Where there was no evidence to support a motion to submit to trial the question of the present sanity of the defendant, other than that adduced upon the motion to stay proceedings, the motion is properly denied; it appearing prima facie that the defendant had been restored to reason, and nothing appearing to constrain a doubt in the mind of the judge as to defendant’s sanity.</p> <p>Id.—Burglary—Defense of Insanity—Conflicting Evidence.—Where a defendant accused of burglary was convicted, and the evidence relating to the defense of his insanity at the time when the burglary was committed was conflicting, and the trial judge considered the evidence sufficient to justify the verdict, its insufficiency cannot be assumed upon appeal.</p> <p>Id. —Description of Building—Immaterial Variance—Surplusage in Information.—The information need only aver that the building in which the burglary was committed was in the county, and an averment that it was at a specified town in the county is surplusage, where it does not appear that the local vicinage is important for identification, and proof t