Court Opinion

ID: 9791025
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:03:39.054827+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:33.402962
License: Public Domain

SEAWELL, J., Concurring.
Whether or not the deceased met her death by accident or whether it was the result of a criminal agency presents a very close question of law. *664The jury, by its verdict, found that the evidence proved the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty, and that there was no reasonable theory or hypothesis upon which he could be innocent. The evidence is largely circumstantial and conflicting to the extent on the one hand that the cranial injuries which caused death could have been produced by an accidental fall, the back of the head striking against the rim of the washbasin, and on the other, to the effect that the cranial injuries could not have been inflicted by one impact but that they were the probable result of several blows. There is no satisfactory evidence of motive on the part of defendant and but slight, if any, incriminatory evidence which tends to support a wicked design to take life. Upon the nature and character of the wounds the inference of guilty or not guilty must flow. I am not prepared to say, as a matter of law, in the face of two opposing conflicting theories, neither of which is demonstrable to the degree of certainty, which the law requires, that the judgment of death should be executed. I am also partially brought to this view by reason of the fact that a member of the sheriff’s official family served as a juror in the ease. I impute no corrupt motive to said juror as it.is most unlikely that he was conscious of the effect of the relation, which he bore to the sheriff of the county. It is true that he was called a courtesy deputy, which means that he received no salary, and has, perhaps, no fixed duties to perform, but nevertheless, he was a deputy sheriff and may have felt that he owed some fealty to his principal. Had he been interrogated as to his relationship to the sheriff, he doubtless would have frankly revealed it and the defense, very likely, would have exercised its right of challenge. The sheriff was very active, as he should have been, in his duty to establish the cause of death which had occurred under unusual circumstances and in so doing he became convinced that there was probable cause to believe the defendant had committed a homicide. In fact, he swore to the complaint accusing defendant of murder. While no one can be said to be censurable for a seeming fortuitous event, nevertheless the defendant was deprived of the right of having his case presented to twelve qualified jurors in a case in which the crime is punishable with death and no valid judgment can be pronounced in *665capital cases upon a verdict unless said jury is constituted of twelve legally qualified jurors. The power to execute judgments in criminal cases has its sole origin in a verdict of a jury composed of twelve jurors formed in the manner-provided by law. The reasoning upon which I am impelled to hold, said juror disqualified is set forth in People v. Le Doux, 155 Cal. 535 [102 Pac. 517]. I am not of the view that the trial court committed prejudicial error in its rulings excluding or limiting proffered evidence of an experimental character, or that the defendant suffered prejudice by the court’s ruling on the admission of evidence upon any other question presented or that the instructions were erroneous as to any substantial proposition of law.
For the reasons above assigned I join in the order of reversal.