State v. Hawkins

Citations

• 23 Wash. 289
• 63 P. 258
• 1900 Wash. LEXIS 359

Syllabus

<p>CHANGE OE VENUE-PREJUDICE OE JUDGE-DISCRETION OE COURT.</p> <p>Under tbe provisions of Bal. Code, §§ 6794, 6795, it is a matter within the discretion of the trial judge to refuse or grant a change of venue, when application therefor is made on the ground of the alleged prejudice of the judge; and his discretion is not restricted to the mere matter of granting a change to some other county, or to continuing the cause until a visiting judge may be called in, by reason of the language of § 6795, which provides that “when the affidavit is founded on prejudice of the judge, the court may, in its discretion, grant a change of venue to some other county, or may continue the cause until such time as it can be tried by another judge in the same county.”</p> <p>MURDER — INSTRUCTIONS-PREMEDITATION.</p> <p>An instruction upon the subject of premeditation, in a prosecution for murder in the first degree, is proper, when it charges the jury that “no particular length of time need elapse before there can be deliberation or premeditation in an act. A single moment may be enough. It is sufficient if you find from the evidence, and beyond a reasonable doubt, that any length of time elapsed, no matter how short, sufficient to allow a design to be formed in the mind and that design to be deliberated upon and meditated over before carrying into effect.”</p> <p>SAME-INTOXICATION.</p> <p>In charging the jury upon the subject of voluntary drunkenness as a defense to the commission of crime, it is not error for the court to enlarge upon the subject by further charging “that, in dealing with such a condition you ought to use great caution not to give immunity to persons who commit crime when they are inflamed by intoxicating drink. You must discriminate between the conditions of mind merely excited by intoxicating drink, and yet capable of forming a specific intent to take life, and such a prostration of the faculties as renders a man incapable of forming the intent, or of deliberation or