Ernsting

Defendant was charged by an information of the district attorney with having, on or about the fifteenth day of August, 1909, in Los Angeles city, murdered one William Salter. The jury by their verdict found him guilty of that crime and of the second degree thereof. He was sentenced to serve a term of twenty years’ imprisonment. An appeal having been taken from the judgment, and from an order denying defendant’s motion for a new trial, the record of the proceedings had in the superior court is brought here for review. Insufficiency of the evidence to sustain the verdict and judgment, and errors claimed to have been committed by the trial court in admitting and refusing to admit testimony, and in giving and refusing to give to the jury certain instructions, are the grounds upon which a reversal of the judgment and order is sought.

William Salter at the time of his death was a man about seventy years of age, in good health, well preserved physically and .very active. He weighed nearly two hundred pounds. On the fifteenth day of August, 1909, he resided at a lodging-house at 618% South Spring street, in Los Angeles city. Near by, about one-half a block from the intersection of Spring…