Case ID: cal_52/html/0446-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "■ By the Court :", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

[No. 10,284.]
    THE PEOPLE v. JAMES KERRICK.
    CoimcTioir fob a Cbihe.—The jury must be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt, before they can convict, that the defendant and no other person committed the offense.
    Appeal from the County Court, County of Tulare.
    The defendant was indicted for forgery, alleged to have been committed on the 20th day of June, 1874, by forging a bill of sale of a band of sheep. The jury returned a verdict of guilty, and he moved for a new trial for error in the instructions, and appealed from the judgment and from an order denying the same. The record did not contain the testimony.
    
      
      Atwill <& Bradley, Attorneys for the Defendant.
    
      Jo Hamilton, Attorney-General, for the People.
   ■ By the Court :

In the charge to the jury the Court instructed them that “ all that is necessary in order to justify the jury in finding the defendant guilty is, that they shall be satisfied from the evidence of the defendant’s guilt to a moral certainty, and beyond a reasonable doubt, although they may not be entirely satisfied from the evidence that the defendant and no other person committed the alleged offense.” This instruction is almost identical with those which were held to be erroneous in People v. Phipps, 39 Cal. 326, and in People v. Padilla, 42 Cal. 535, and on the authority of these cases the judgment and order are reversed and the cause remanded for a new trial. Remittitur forthwith.