People v. Miller

Citations

• 125 Cal. 44
• 57 P. 770
• 1899 Cal. LEXIS 796

Syllabus

<p>Criminal Law—Homicide—Challenge to Jüror—Newspaper Reports— Private Statements.—A challenge to a juror upon the trial of a defendant accused of murder, for actual bias, should be sustained, where the juror upon his voir dire states that besides reading newspaper accounts of the killing, he had heard statements of persons whom'he had known for years, and who said they were true, and he believed them, though they might be mistaken, and that he would commence the trial of the case with an impressional opinion unfavorable to the defendant from what he had read and heard, subject to be changed upon the introduction of almost any evidence that would disprove it.</p> <p>Id.—Bight to Impartial Jury—Exception to Common-law Bule— Affirmative Showing.—The only exception to the common-law rule that the defendant is entitled to an impartial jury is declared in section 1076 of the Penal Code; and to sustain such exception the opinion of the juror must affirmatively appear tor be founded alone upon public rumors, statements in public journals, or common notoriety.</p> <p>[d.—Self-Defense—Necessity Induced by Fault—Use of Instruction Disapproved.—The instruction upon the law of self-defense, as to necessity induced by the fault of the defendant, taken bodily from the cases of People v. Kennett, 114 Cal. IS, and People v. Roemer, 114 Cal. 51, is unsound, aside from the qualification ■therein expressed; and though not erroneous, if given with that qualification, no good purpose can be subserved by giving it, and it should never be given.</p>