State v. Duncan

Citations

• 101 Wash. 542
• 172 P. 915
• 1918 Wash. LEXIS 926

Syllabus

<p>Homicide—Instructions—Premeditated Design. Upon defining murder in the first degree, it is proper to instruct that premeditated design is a mental operation of thinking upon an act before doing it or upon an inclination before carrying it out.</p> <p>Same. It is proper to instruct that malice aforethought or premeditated malice is the intention to unlawfully take life, meditated upon before the act, without any particular fixed time and that but a moment need be taken in the formation of the design.</p> <p>Same—Presumptions and Burden of Proof—Degrees. Upon a prosecution for murder, it is proper to instruct that, if the killing is proved beyond, a reasonable doubt, the presumption of law is that it is murder in the second degree, and the burden of proving justification is upon the defendant.</p> <p>Criminal Law — Appeal — Review—Invited Error—Instruction on Alibi. Accused in a prosecution for murder cannot complain of the giving of an instruction upon the subject of alibi, on the theory that alibi was not his defense, where he requested an instruction upon that subject and had introduced evidence to establish an alibi.</p> <p>Same—Harmless Error—Instructions Given. Error cannot be predicated on the refusal to give a requested instruction that was fully covered in the general charge.</p> <p>Same—Instructions—Credibility of Witnesses—Requests. In a prosecution for murder, it is proper to refuse to give precautionary instructions as to the credibility to be given evidence of declarations and statements alleged to have been made by the accused and testified to by witnesses, where other instructions were given to the effect that the jury was the sole judge' of the credibility of the witnesses and should consider their conduct, the reasonableness of their story, etc., and where the statements of the accused referred to, although they showed his relations with deceased and motives of jealousy or revenge, were not strictly in the nature of confessions or admissions of th