Ornelas

The defendant was charged with the crime of assault by means of force likely to produce great bodily injury, alleged to have been committed by striking one M. A. Patterson about the head and body with an iron bar. The jury found him guilty and he appeals from the judgment of conviction and from an order denying his motion for a new trial.

The ease arose out of acts occurring in an orange grove in Orange County at a time when a strike was in progress. Patterson testified that he was in charge of the packing house for an orange association; that on the day in question he was acting as a guard while a crew from the packing house was picking oranges on a certain ranch; that several cars drove up and a large group of men entered the grove; that as the men approached him he fired two shots in the air and the remaining four shots into the ground; that five or six of the men in the party were approaching him from various directions ; that they were armed with sticks, clubs and irons; that he directed them not to come any further; that they kept on coming and he hit two of them over the head with his empty revolver; that immediately thereafter he turned his head and saw the defendant…