People v. Smith

Defendant, who was charged with the murder of his wife, Mary Edla Smith, was convicted of murder in the first degree, was sentenced to life imprisonment, and now appeals from the judgment and from an order denying his motion for a new trial.

' The evidence is entirely circumstantial. The theory adopted by the prosecution at the trial was that the alleged homicide was perpetrated by means of cyanide administered by defendant to his wife on or about March 14, 1921, at their home at Bell Station, a suburb of Los Angeles. The principal points made for a reversal are that the court erred (1) in permitting the prosecution to give evidence of the contents of a certain stomach in the absence of legal evidence to identify it as the stomach of defendant’s deceased wife; and (2) in permitting the people to put in evidence a certain can of cyanide found in a part of the establishment where defendant was employed.

On the afternoon of Monday, March 14, 1921, the body of defendant’s wife was found in a sitting position in a chair in the living-room of her home at Bell Station. The remains were immediately removed to an undertaking establishment conducted by one G. G. Wheat at Huntington Park,…