People v. Matthews

Citations

• 6 Cal. Unrep. 341
• 58 P. 371
• 1899 Cal. LEXIS 1185

Syllabus

<p>Homicide.—The Admission of Evidence not Affecting Substantial Rights of defendant and not prejudicial to the merits of his defense is not ground for reversal.</p> <p>Homicide—Sobriety of Accused.—Evidence Showing that at the time of the murder defendant was sober is not .prejudicial to defendant, where he and others have testified to the same effect.</p> <p>Homicide.—An Instruction is Properly Refused Which is based upon a state of facts of which there is no evidence.</p> <p>Homicide.—Testimony to the Effect That Witness, on the night of the homicide, passed a young man on the road; that afterward she heard a wagon coming rapidly up behind, and soon after the sound ceased, and she heard a pistol shot; that she passed the place next morning, and saw a pool of blood; and that she had recognized a body at the morgue as the body of the young man she had passed on the road, is material, and properly admitted.</p> <p>Homicide—Resisting Arrest.—Where the Defense to Homicide is that defendant, a constable, was attempting to arrest deceased, an instruction, “If the jury believe that defendant, when he fired the fatal shot, was lawfully attempting to arrest deceased, and intended to shoot over his head, they will find defendant not guilty,” was properly modified to read, “If the jury believe that defendant had reasonable cause to believe, and did believe, that the deceased had committed a felony, and was attempting to arrest deceased, and fired the fatal shot intending to shoot over the defendant’s head.”</p> <p>Homicide—Resisting Arrest.—An Instruction That, “if the jury had any doubt about the lawfulness of the means adopted by defendant to arrest deceased, they should acquit defendant,” is properly refused, as being indefinite.</p>