State v. Demming

Citations

• 79 Kan. 526
• 100 P. 285
• 1909 Kan. LEXIS 229

Syllabus

<p>SYLLABUS BY THE COURT.</p> <p>1.' Murder—Evidence and Verdict. The evidence examined and ' found sufficient to uphold the verdict.</p> <p>2. -Evidence—Threatening Language by Defendant. Rulings upon the admission and rejection of evidence held not to have been erroneous.</p> <p>3. - Self-defense. In a prosecution upon the charge of murder by shooting, the issue being self-defense, the court was asked to give this instruction: “It is not essential that the defendant show that deceased actually had a deadly weapon; it is sufficient in that respect if he show that the conduct of the deceased was such as to evidence [induce] a reasonable belief that he had one.” Held, that the subject was sufficiently covered by a charge that in order to have been justified in his act the defendant must have believed upon reasonable grounds that the deceased, having the apparent power to take his.life or inflict upon him great bodily harm, was about to do so when he fired the fatal shot.</p> <p>4. Criminal Law—Notice of Offense Charged—Entries in Justice’s Docket. It is not sufficient ground for a plea in abatement that the docket of the justice of the peace before whom a preliminary examination was held shows merely a finding that a crime has been committed (its character not being stated) of which there is probable cause to believe the defendant guilty, and an order that he be held to answer the charge as filed against him in the district court, where the information charges the same offense as that described in the warrant.</p> <p>5. -Sentence. Where a defendant is convicted of murder in the second degree a definite punishment should be assessed; yet if an indeterminate sentence is pronounced the validity of the conviction is not affected, but the cause may be remanded for resentence.</p>