State v. Gates

Citations

• 28 Wash. 689
• 69 P. 385
• 1902 Wash. LEXIS 537

Syllabus

<p>HOMICIDE-CORPUS DELICTI-CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE.</p> <p>In a prosecution for murder, where there is no dispute as to the identity of the body found, the court is justified in submitting the case to the jury, even if in order to establish the other elements of the corpus delicti, such as .death by violence and the defendant’s connection therewith, it should be necessary to depend upon circumstantial evidence.</p> <p>SAME-EVIDENCE-OPINION OF WITNESS.</p> <p>A question calling for the opinion of a witness as to whether or not he thought the master of a launch was aboard of her from the manner in which she was being guided, was properly excluded as not being a matter involving skillful knowledge justifying the resort to expert testimony.</p> <p>SAME-THREATS.</p> <p>. Threats made by the accused a year or more before a homicide are admissible in evidence, even though general in their character and not directed toward the deceased in particular.</p> <p>SAME-REFUSAL TO PERMIT IMPROPER QUESTIONS — NECESSITY FOR INSTRUCTIONS.</p> <p>Where the court has refused to permit answers to be given the questions propounded by the prosecution, it is not' error for the court to refuse to charge the jury to draw no inferences from such questions.</p> <p>SAME-HYPOTHETICAL QUESTIONS.</p> <p>The refusal of the court to allow a witness to be interrogated as to what he would have done under certain circumstances was. proper, since the inquiry should be as to the facts actually occurring, and not as to what another would have done under like circumstances.</p> <p>SAME-REBUTTAL •— SELF-SERVING DECLARATIONS.</p> <p>The fact that the prosecution had put in evidence statements made by the accused, as a part of its case in chief, and not for the purpose of impeaching the accused, who had not at the time appeared as a witness in his own behalf, would not warrant the admission of statements made by the accused to his own witnesses, since such, statements would be in the nature of self-serving one