State v. Stentz

Citations

• 33 Wash. 444
• 74 P. 588
• 1903 Wash. LEXIS 539

Syllabus

<p>Homicide—Flight—Effect of—Instructions—Assumption of Fact. In a prosecution for a homicide an instruction as to the effect of the flight of a person immediately after the commission' of the offense, “if you find from the evidence that the defendant fled,” etc., does not assume the fact that the defendant fled.</p> <p>Same—Weight to be Given to Fact of Flight. Such an instruction properly leaves to the jury the weight to be given to the circumstance of flight.</p> <p>Same—Sufficiency of Evidence as to Flight. There is sufficient evidence to warrant an instruction as to the circumstance of defendant’s flight where, after running down and killing a bicyclist in a public road in the day time, defendant changed his course into an obscure road without stopping to render assistance, sought to avoid meeting any one, and separated from his companions, and avoided the town into which he was going and was making his way away from home at the time of his arrest.</p> <p>Homicide—Evidence of Good Character—Instructions. Instructions that evidence of good character for peace and quietness is material to a defense where the accused is on trial for a homicide, are properly refused when they further clearly intimate that the jury might acquit on such evidence even though they find from the evidence that he was guilty; also when they are argumentative, and attempt to give the reasons for the law.</p> <p>Same. It is sufficient to instruct that evidence of good character should he considered as tending to establish a defense, but that it could not avail if all the evidence satisfied the jury beyond a reasonable doubt as to his guilt.</p> <p>Involuntary Homicide—Accidental Killing in Attempting to Avoid Collision—Unlawful Act of Reckless Driving in Street—Instructions. In a prosecution for involuntary homicide where the evidence tended to show that defendant ran down and killed a bicyclist while wantonly and recklessly driving upon the public streets in such a manner as to endanger th