Case ID: cal_53/html/0627-01.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. 10,407.]
    THE PEOPLE v. COCH.
    Arson—Juby must bind Degree of Crime.—On the trial of a defendant for arson, if the jury find him guilty, it is their duty to find the degree of the crime of which he is guilty; and it is error for the Court to instruct them that if they find him guilty they should return as their verdict that they find him “ guilty as charged in the indictment.”
    Appeal from the County Court of Los Angeles County.
    The defendant was convicted of arson, and moved for a new trial, which was denied, whereupon he appealed from the judgment and from the order denying his motion for a new trial.’
    
      Frank Ganahl and A. J. King, for Appellant.
    
      Attorney-General Hamilton, for Respondents.
   By the Court :

The defendant was indicted for the crime of arson. The Court instructed the jury that if they found the defendant guilty the form of their verdict should be: “ We, the jury in the above cause, find the defendant guilty as charged in the indictment.”

Arson is divided into two degrees. (Penal Code, secs. 453, 454.) It is provided by the Penal Code, sec. 1157, that “ whenever a crime is distinguished into degrees, the jury, if they convict the defendant, must find the degree of the crime of which he is guilty.” The instruction was erroneous.

Judgment and order reversed, and cause remanded for a new trial.