Case ID: cal_78/html/0388-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "The Court.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

[No. 20502.
    In Bank.
    March 14, 1889.]
    THE PEOPLE, Respondent, v. JOHN H. O’NEIL, Appellant.
    Criminal Law—Homicide — Verdict. —The failure of a verdict of “ guilty as charged,” under an information for murder, to specify the degree of murder, vitiates the verdict.
    Appeal from a judgment of the Superior Court of Contra Costa County, and from an order refusing a new trial.
    The facts are stated in the opinion of the court.
    
      Joseph H. Budd, James II. Budd, and II. G. Levynshy, for Appellant.
    
      Attorney-General Johnson, for Respondent.
   The Court.

Appellant was tried upon an information which alleged that he feloniously, unlawfully, and with malice aforethought, killed and murdered one Philip Stump. The jury returned a verdict in these words: “We, the jury, decide the defendant, John H. O’Neil, guilty as charged, the penalty to be imprisonment for life.” The code provides 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.” It has been uniformly held that a failure to specify the degree of murder under that section vitiates the verdict. (People v. Campbell, 40 Cal. 129.)

The attorney-general confesses error.

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