People v. Sansome

Citations

• 98 Cal. 235
• 33 P. 202
• 1893 Cal. LEXIS 896

Syllabus

<p>Criminal Law—Evidence—Failure of Defendant to Testify—Comment by District Attorney—New Trial—Waiver of Error Where the defendant in a criminal case fails to testify in his own behalf, the district attorney has no right in addressing the jury to comment upon such failure; hut error in making such comments can only be availed of on motion for new trial, and is waived unless properly presented upon the record of such motion.</p> <p>Id.—Viva Voce Motion for New Trial—Statement of Grounds—Bill of Exception—Where, upon appeal from an order denying a viva voce motion for s, new trial in a criminal case, the bill of exceptions fails to show that the alleged error was stated as a ground of the motion, or that the attention of the trial court was called to it, the alleged error must he regarded as waived.</p> <p>Id.—Misconduct of Jurors—Drinking of Intoxicating Liquors.—The drinking of intoxicating liquors by some of the jurors, in a criminal action, after the case was submitted to them and before verdict, while in charge of an officer who had taken them out to dinner, is not such misconduct on their part as to warrant a reversal of the judgment, if they were not affected by the liquor which they drank.</p> <p>Id.—Setting Aside Information—Preliminary Examination—Substitution of Justice of Different Township.—An information cannot be set aside upon the ground that the defendant was examined and held to answer by a justice of the peace of a different township from that of the justice before whom the complaint was filed, and who issued the warrant for the arrest, where it appears that such other justice was called in pursuant to section 105 of the Code of Civil Procedure to act as a committing magistrate, in place of the justice who issued the warrant and at his request.</p> <p>Id.—Testimony of Accomplice—Instruction as to Matter of Fact.—It is not allowable in a criminal prosecution, where a witness is claimed to have testified as an accomplice, to instruct the jury as to t