State v. Ross

Citations

• 85 Wash. 218
• 147 P. 1149
• 1915 Wash. LEXIS 1271

Syllabus

<p>Criminal Law — Evidence—Admissions. In a prosecution for assault, declarations made by defendant on his arrest, tending to show intent or motive as to the offense charged, are admissible; and the fact that, interspersed through the conversation testified as had with the defendant, were probable references to feeling between him and other parties in the neighborhood would not constitute prejudicial error.</p> <p>Witnesses — Cross-Examination. In a prosecution for assault, the action of the court, in excluding cross-examination of the state’s witnesses as to charges made that the defendant’s mother was a claim jumper was not error, inasmuch as it was the duty of the court to restrict cross-examination of witnesses to the issues involved in the case.</p> <p>Assault and Battery — Criminal Prosecution ■ — • Degrees — Instructions. In a prosecution for assault in the second degree, under which the defendant might be convicted of assault in the third degree, defined as any assault not included in first and second degree assaults, an instruction defining all the degrees of assault, but expressly charging the jury that “defendant is not charged with assault in the first degree, and a definition of that offense is only given you that you may better understand the other degrees,” was not prejudicial error.</p> <p>Same — Second Degree — Evidence—Sufficiency. A conviction of assault in the second degree is warranted, under Rem. & Bal. Code, § 2414, defining the offense as willfully inflicting grievous bodily harm upon another with or without a weapon, or as assaulting with a weapon or thing likely to produce bodily harm, where the evidence showed that defendant disarmed the prosecuting witness of his revolver, struck him across the jaw with something that felt like a slug of iron, that he had a cut under each eye which were swollen almost shut, that his jaw was severely swollen, and that there was a fracture of the nasal bone.</p> <p>Criminal Law — Appeal and Error — Review —