State v. Pettit

Citations

• 74 Wash. 510
• 133 P. 1014
• 1913 Wash. LEXIS 2085

Syllabus

<p>Indictment and Information — Requisites—Duplicity—Larceny. An information charging larceny by color and aid of false pretenses and also as bailee or trustee, charges the commission of the offense in two ways specified by Rem. & Bal. Code, § 2601, and since they are not repugnant and proof of one means is not inconsistent with proof of the other, the information does not charge more than one crime and is direct and certain within the requirements of Rem. & Bal. Code, §§ 2057, 2059.</p> <p>Same — Requisites — Alternative Means — Joinder of Offenses. Where a statute defining a crime specified different ways in which it may be committed, connecting the same with the disjunctive “or,” an information may charge alternative means connecting the same with the conjunction “and.”</p> <p>Criminal Law — Trial—Admissions of Prosecutor. An admission by the prosecuting attorney that a conviction was not expected under one of the alternative charges in the information, does not conclude the court or make it error to instruct the jury thereon; since the court is not controlled by the attitude of the prosecuting attorney.</p> <p>Criminal Law — Appeal—Review—Instructions. Instructions are not to be reviewed as though standing alone, and are not erroneous if when read with the entire charge the jury were not misled.</p> <p>Criminal Law — Evidence—Declaration of Conspirator. In a prosecution of two persons in which there was sufficient evidence that they were acting in concert with a common criminal design, evidence is admissible of a conversation between the prosecuting witness and one of the defendants when the other was not present.</p> <p>Criminal Law — Instructions—Flight. An instruction that flight was a material circumstance to be weighed and considered by the jury in connection with all other facts, that the term flight means that there had been a departure from the defendant’s abode at the time of the crime due to fear, that it was for the jury to determine whether defendant