People v. Lattimore
People v. Lattimore
Opinion of the Court
Conviction of arson, motion for new trial denied, and defendant appeals. Only two points are made in the brief of appellant.
1. That it was error to admit certain evidence of other burnings of property on the rancho of Chapman, the place where the fire in this instance occurred. The evidence against the defendant in this case was almost entirely circumstantial. Among other circumstances
2. One of the instructions given by the court to the jury was an exact copy of the instruction considered by this court in Bank, in the. case of People v. Levine, 85 Cal. 39. We again repeat that the defense of alibi is “not one requiring that the evidence given in support of it should be scrutinized otherwise or differently from that given in support of any other issue
8. At the oral argument, an additional point was made, — that the evidence was insufficient to justify the verdict. We have carefully read all the evidence in the record, and find no cause for disturbing the verdict upon this ground.
Judgment and order affirmed.
Paterson, J., concurred.
Works, J. — I think the instruction complained of, relating to the defense of alibi, was erroneous, but as the court in Bank held in People v. Levine that such an instruction was not cause for reversal, I feel myself bound by that decision.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- THE PEOPLE v. JOHN E. LATTIMORE
- Cited By
- 14 cases
- Status
- Published
- Syllabus
- Criminal Law — Arson — Evidence — Previous Fires — Declarations of Defendant — Threats. —Upon the trial of one accused of arson, it is not error to introduce in evidence conversations between the defendant and different persons, at different times before the fire, as to former fires upon the same property, in which the defendant used expressions to the effect that the former fires were nothing to what would happen in the future, and other like expressions of a threatening character, indicating an intention to burn certain persons out. Id.—Proof of Intent — Previous Arson.—Evidence tending to show that the defendant started one of the former fires, to which allusion had been made in such conversations, by which another building on the same premises was burned, is admissible, as cumulative evidence tending to prove his intent to copimit the arson charged. Id. —Alibi — Instruction — Scrutiny of Evidence. —The defense of aVU is not one requiring that the evidence given in support of it should be scrutinized otherwise or differently from that given in support of any other issue in the cause; but an unnecessary instruction in regard to the scrutinizing of such evidence is not ground of reversal, if the charge of the court, taken as a whole, contains a full and fair exposition of the law.