State v. Erving

Citations

• 19 Wash. 435
• 53 P. 717
• 1898 Wash. LEXIS 405

Syllabus

<p>■CRIMINAL LAW — STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS — COMMENCEMENT OF PROSECUTION— SECONDARY EVIDENCE — HOMICIDE — SUFFICIENCY OF EVIDENCE.</p> <p>Under Code Proc., § 1188 (Bal. Code, § 6780) which, provides that prosecutions for the offenses of murder and arson, where death ensues, may be commenced at any period after the commission of the offense; and for offenses the punishment of which may be imprisonment in the penitentiary, within three years after their commission, the term murder includes both degrees ■of that offense, and manslaughter, and for such crimes a prosecution may be instituted at any period after the commission of the offense, although the lower degrees of homicide may be punished only by imprisonment in the penitentiary.</p> <p>A preliminary examination before a committing magistrate constitutes the commencement of a prosecution within the meaning of Code Proc., § 1188, fixing a limitation on the commencement of prosecutions.</p> <p>When a letter is admissible in evidence, secondary evidence ■of its contents is admissible, when the witness testifies that he has no idea where the letter is and cannot produce it in court.</p> <p>A verdict finding defendant guilty of murder in the second degree is warranted, when it appears from the evidence that deceased was found at the bottom of an abandoned well on an unoccupied farm on Whidby Island some three years after his disappearance, with marks on his skull indicating he had been struck there by a blunt instrument; that deceased was last seen alive in company with defendant, going in the direction of the premises where the body was afterward discovered; that defendant and deceased had become acquainted in the city of Seattle at a time when deceased had money on his person; that defendant induced deceased to go to Whidby Island, promising him employment; that defendant represented, upon being asked what had become of his friend (deceased), that the latter had returned to Seattle the day before; that there was but o