People v. Turner

Citations

• 65 Cal. 540
• 4 P. 553
• 1884 Cal. LEXIS 624

Syllabus

<p>Criminal Law—Assault with Intent to Commit Murder—Sufficiency of Indictment and Yebdict. —Since the amendment of 1874 to section 245 of the Penal Code, where a party is indicted for an assault with intent to commit murder, and a verdict is rendered against him for an assault with a deadly weapon, the verdict is sufficient to support a judgment of imprisonment for two years in the State prison, without stating that the assault was made with intent to commit great bodily injury.</p> <p>Id.—Impeachment of Witness__A witness was asked, “did you not state, in the month of September, in the presence of William Knowles and James Robinson, on the way between town here and the race track, that yon would go into court and swear' anything at .all that would injure the Thomases,” to which he answered, no. Held, that the question was sufficiently definite to lay the foundation for an impeachment of the witness.</p> <p>Id.—Instructions — Circumstantial Evidenoe.—The court refused the following instruction to the jury asked for by the defendant: “You are instructed that before you can find the defendant guilty, you must he satisfied to a moral certainty, that the circumstances of the case are not only consistent with the guilt of the defendant, but are entirely inconsistent with any other reasonable hypothesis that can he adduced from the evidence.” A full and correct charge had already been given on the subject of reasonable doubt. Held, that as the case did not depend in any degree on. circumstantial evidence, it was not error to refuse the instruction.</p>