Court Opinion

ID: 6901841
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-07-23 21:55:42.850465+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:06:12.007216
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice King and Mr. Justice Slater
dissenting.
All the questions raised on this motion are fully discussed by Mr. Justice Eakin in the original opinion in this case, which is reported in 107 Pac. 974, and we shall adhere to the views therein expressed.
13. Upon this motion counsel, however, lay particular stress upon the action of the court in admitting in evidence the pistol found by Officer Tichenor in the toilet at the time he arrested Yee Gueng and Jo Bong. Independent of the fact adverted to in the original opinion that the finding of the pistol was an incident of the arrest, and, therefore, admissible, we are of the opinion that upon well-known principles of law it was admissible on other grounds. The evidence of Lee Shu was direct and positive that he saw this defendant and Yee Gueng and another unknown Chinaman in the hall of the building of deceased, assaulting him, and that they each had pistols. Immediately after this, Gow Ying Yuen saw three Chinamen run out of the building, and recognized defendant and Yee Gueng as two of them. They were last seen by him going down Oak Street in the direction of the building in which they were afterwards arrested, *500and only a short distance therefrom. In about half an hour the officers arrived at the room where defendants were arrested, and were refused admission. When they finally succeeded in breaking down the door, they found Yee Gueng and Jo Bong concealed in a dark closet, a loaded pistol, which gave evidence of having been recently discharged, lying on the floor of the closet, and Lem Woon in a bunk in the adjoining room.
14. Here is evidence tending to show three things: (1) That defendant was present at the scene of the shooting, in company with Yee Gueng, and that they and another Chinaman were engaged in a felonious assault, with firearms, on deceased. (2) That they fled together to the same building. (3) That a pistol which to all appearances had been recently discharged and reloaded was in the same closet where Yee Gueng had been concealed under circumstances which indicated to any reasonable mind that it was one of the pistols used by the conspirators in perpetrating the murder. Now it makes no difference which one of the three conspirators fired the fatal shot, if the evidence shows that all three were present, aiding and abetting therein. There is strong evidence tending to show that at least three or four bullets were shot from the pistol of Lem Woon, but several bullets are not accounted for, and not found, and the evidence of Tichenor is to the effect that the pistol found by him in the closet when he arrested Yee Gueng showed powder stains in the barrel, indicating its recent use. These circumstances show a criminal conspiracy between Yee Gueng, Lem Woon, and another Chinaman to murder the deceased. Nor does the admission of the pistol in evidence come within the rule that under most circumstances forbids the introduction of testimony as to acts or declarations of a conspirator after the termination of the conspiracy. The finding of the pistol and its con*501dition was neither an act nor a declaration. It was a fact indicating that when Yee Gueng was seen with defendant, armed and assaulting the deceased, he was doing so with intent to murder, and assisted in its perpetration; and this intent and the consequences of it are imputable to the defendant, who, as other evidence tends to show, was present, assisting in the commission of the crime. The pistol was no more an act or declaration of Yee Gueng than was the closet in which he was arrested. It was a mute, but forceful, witness, corroborating the testimony of Lee Shu that the defendant and Yee Gueng were armed at the scene of the shooting. It further tended to show that the purpose of their being there was homicidal, and, in some degree, that it had been used for the purposes of the murder.
It is significant ¿hat the defendant and Yee Gueng were never so far as the testimony discloses twenty feet apart from the time the' homicide was committed until they were arrested. They were seen together armed at the scene of the shooting; they were seen running away together from the scene of the crime; and they were arrested in the same building, a very short time after-wards, in rooms in close proximity to each other.
In a somewhat extended experience in criminal trials, the writer has never seen a case of murder in the first degree more clearly and conclusively proved, and to seek now some mere pretext to set aside a verdict obtained after a fair and impartial trial would be to encourage crime and make a mockery of the law.
The petition is denied.
Affirmed : Rehearing Denied.