State v. Myers

Citations

• 12 Wash. 77
• 40 P. 626
• 1895 Wash. LEXIS 124

Syllabus

<p>HOMICIDE — EVIDENCE — JUDICIAL COMMENT — INSTRUCTIONS — REASONABLE DOUBT — INSUFFICIENCY OF EVIDENCE.</p> <p>Upon the trial of a person charged with the crime of murder committed in the perpetration of arson, he is not entitled to introduce proof showing the whereabouts, at the time of the fire, of a certain person hostile to the accused, when neither such proof nor the other circumstances already in evidence tend to show the commission of the crime by such person.</p> <p>Where the court, in excluding as exhibits in evidence certain boxes filled with dirt in which appeared impressions made by the feet of horses, referred thereto as “manufactured testimony,” the language must be construed as applying to the manner in which the exhibits had been manufactured, and not to the course of the defense in conducting the cause.</p> <p>In a prosecution based upon circumstantial evidence a charge to the jury that “ the law, in order to warrant a conviction, does not require that you should be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt of each link in the chain of circumstances relied upon to establish the defendant’s guilt. It is sufficient if, taking the testimony all together, you are satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty,” is not misleading, as the expression “chain of circumstances,” as used therein, conveys the same idea as the expression “inculpatory facts.”</p> <p>The supreme court will not set aside a conviction on the ground of the insufficiency of the evidence, although the guilt of the accused may not have been made to appear absolutely certain, when the cause has been tried before two juries, each of different counties, with the same result, and the trial court has twice refused to interfere with the verdict.</p>