State v. Howard

Citations

• 33 Wash. 250
• 74 P. 382
• 1903 Wash. LEXIS 516

Syllabus

<p>Courts—State or Federal—Objection to Jurisdiction-—When May be Raised. An objection going to the jurisdiction of the state court to try a cause for the reason that the federal courts have exclusive jurisdiction of the offense and of the person of the accused may he raised for the first time in the supreme court.</p> <p>Homicide—Indians—Offense Committed on Reservation—Jurisdiction of State Court—Tribal Relations—When not Shown --Severing Relations—Proof of Wihen not Necessary. Where an Indian accused of murder committed upon a reservation testified that he was not a member of the tribe and had never had any tribal relations therewith, and was never allied by association with his ancestral tribes, and that he lived and worked among white people, no tribal relations are shown, and he cannot claim that the federal courts have exclusive jurisdiction of the offense on account of the failure of the prosecution to prove that he had severed his tribal relations.</p> <p>Same—Jurisdiction of Federal Courts Limited to Indians Sustaining Tribal Relations. A state court has jurisdiction of an offense committed within the limits of a reservation against an Indian, by another who had never sustained any tribal relations, since Act. Cong. 1885, c. 341, § 9, 23 Stat. 385, providing that a crime by an Indian against another within the limits of a reservation shall be tried by the federal courts, must he limited to Indians sustaining, tribal relations, when construed in connection with all tbe other sections of the act, which all relate only to such Indians.</p> <p>Homicide—Degrees of Offense—Perpetration of Rafe—Instructions Proper as to Lesser Degree Although Evidence Tended to Show First Degree Only. Under Bal. Code, § 7035, defining murder in the first degree as killing another with deliberate and premeditated malice, or in the perpetration of rape, etc., when an information charges the crime by strangling, it is not error to instruct as to lesser degrees and manslaughter in ac