[Download] "People V. Bender" by Supreme Court Of California * Book PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: People V. Bender
- Author : Supreme Court Of California
- Release Date : January 01, 1945
- Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 65 KB
Description
Defendant (known as Richard Bennett) was convicted of the murder of his wife, Rena Bennett. The murder was found to be of the first degree. He appeals from a judgment imposing the death penalty and from an order denying his motion for a new trial. The defendant urges as grounds for reversal the failure of the trial court of its own motion fully to instruct the jury as to the law applicable to circumstantial evidence and the giving of an instruction that, if the specific intent to take life exists at the time of the killing, the offense "would of course be murder of the first degree." He further contends that as a matter of law the evidence at most establishes manslaughter. We have concluded that the evidence is sufficent to establish that the homicide was murder but insufficient to establish that such murder was deliberate and premeditated, and that the only prejudicial errors relate solely to the degree of the crime and do not warrant a reversal if the judgment is reduced to an adjudication of murder of the second degree. Therefore, pursuant to the power vested in us by section 1181 of