Walker

Defendant having been convicted of murder and sentenced to imprisonment for life, appeals from the judgment and from an order denying his motion for a new trial.

The first proposition urged on behalf of the defendant is that the court erred in admitting in evidence, over the objections of the defendant, the testimony of the witness Coulter, a shorthand reporter, relative to a so-called confession made by the defendant in the presence of a deputy district attorney and certain police officers and other persons. The ground of the objection is that, under the circumstances shown in the record, the alleged confession was not free and voluntary, but was extorted by fear, intimidation, and improper influence.

If it be admitted for the purposes of the argument that the facts affecting the admissibility of the confession are within the rule as stated in People v. Quan Gim Gow, 23 Cal. App. 507 , [ 138 Pac. 918 ], and cases there cited, and that the court in the case at bar erred in receiving the evidence, the record further shows that the error is without prejudice to the substantial rights of the defendant. The substance of the confession is that the defendant in the presence of said…