Castro

Defendant was charged with the crime of murder. The trial commenced on April 14th and ended on April 17th, with a verdict convicting him of murder in the second degree.

At the close of the evidence the court, addressing counsel, asked how much time they desired in which to argue the case, to which Mr. Adcock, one of defendant’s attorneys, replied that he would like two hours for himself, stating that they had been three days introducing the testimony; and Mr. Phillips, another attorney for defendant, replied that he took two hours at the last trial. Thereupon the court fixed two and one-half hours as the time allotted to each side for argument, saying: “You can apportion it to suit yourselves.” No objection other than as stated appears to have been made to the action of the court. Thereafter defendant moved for a new trial and presented an affidavit to the effect that the action of the court in so limiting the time for argument was prejudicial to defendant in that the time was inadequate for defendant’s counsel to fairly and properly review the evidence and present argument based thereon in his behalf, on account of which many important things were necessarily omitted which…