People v. Morine

Citations

• 61 Cal. 367
• 1882 Cal. LEXIS 624

Syllabus

<p>Muedeb—Justification—Apparent Necessity. — The defendant was charged with murder, and on the trial the Court instructed the jury:</p> <p>1. “To justify a person in killing another in self-defense, it must appear mat the danger was so urgent and pressing that in order tc save his own life, or to prevent his receiving great bodily harm, the killing of the deceased was absolutely necessary; and it must also appear that the person killed was the assailant, or that the slayer had really and in good faith endeavored to decline any further struggle before the mortal blow was given.”</p> <p>2. “To constitute murder in the first degree it is only necessary that the act of killing be preceded by, and the result of a concurrence of will, deliberation, and premeditation on the part of the slayer. There need be no appreciable space of time between the intent to kill and the act of killing. They may be as instantaneous as successive thoughts of the mind.”</p> <p>3. “The killing being shown in a given, case, if it appears that the killing was willful, deliberate, and premeditated, it constitutes murder in the first degree.”</p> <p>But the Court elsewhere instructed the jury, in effect, that the justification is complete where there is a reasonable ground to apprehend a design to commit a felony, or to do some great bodily injury, or to justify him in the belief that such danger exists, or to create a reasonable apprehension that he, the defendant, was about to suffer great bodily injury; that in such case the defendant had the right to act upon such appearances, and to kill the deceased, if necessary, to avoid the apprehended danger; and under such circumstances the killing would be justifiable, although it may afterwards turn out that the appearances were false, and there was in fact neither design to do him a serious injury nor danger that it would be done. And the Court also, in its definition of the crime of murder, instructed them fully that the killing must be with malice