Searle

The defendant was charged in an information by the district attorney of the county of Contra Costa with the crime of murder. He was tried, convicted of manslaughter, and sentenced to imprisonment in the state prison at San Quentin for a term of eight years. The present appeal is from the judgment and from an order denying defendant’s motion for a new trial.

Appellant presents but three grounds of appeal, viz., insufficiency of the evidence to support the verdict; that the corpus delicti was not proved independently of the extrajudicial admissions of the defendant, and that the view by the jury of the scene of the crime in the absence of the defendant was a violation of his constitutional right.

Dealing with the first point urged, the defendant is alleged to have shot one Patrick Conroy on June 4, 1916. The testimony shows that the deceased was found that afternoon about 5 o’clock mortally wounded on a ranch in the county mentioned. He and one Joe Hickey, two itinerant laborers, were friends and companions, and had been such for a period of eight years. On the afternoon of said June 4th, walking along the railroad track in the- vicinity they came to a small shed on a ranch…