Wagner

The defendant in this case, upon an information charging him with the crime of murder, was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to serve a term of eight years in the state prison at San Quentin. The appeal is from the judgment and from an order denying the defendant a new trial.

The facts of the case upon which the people relied for a conviction, briefly stated, are these: At and prior to the time of the alleged commission of the offense the defendant, Roy Wagner, a boy of nineteen years of age, was residing with his father, the deceased, Otto F. Wagner, at the home of the latter near the city of Fresno. At the time of the commission of the offense and for three months prior thereto the defendant was the only person who resided with the deceased. Between the hours of 7 and 8 a. m. on March 15, 1915, the neighbors of the deceased heard a shot apparently fired in the vicinity of the house of the deceased, and about forty minutes thereafter saw the defendant leave his father’s house and proceed at a rapid gait toward the near-by home of a Mr. J. H. Fisher. When the defendant arrived there he exclaimed to Fisher, his family, and a hired man named Dickinson, all of whom were seated…