Elliott

Defendants (who were police officers), were convicted on the first count of an information wherein they were charged with the commission of the crime of asking and agreeing to receive a bribe. They appeal from the judgment and an order denying their motion for a new trial.

Appellants’ principal complaint relates to several different instructions which at the request of the prosecution, were given to the jury. The first two of such instructions should be considered together. After giving the definition of direct and of circumstantial evidence, in effect the jury-was informed that as to the degree of proof required for conviction, the law makes no distinction between the two kinds of evidence, and that if upon consideration of the whole case the jury should be satisfied to a moral certainty and beyond a reasonable doubt of the guilt of the defendants, it should so find, regardless of whether such conclusions was produced by either direct or by circumstantial evidence, or by both such kinds of evidence. The jury was also instructed that if it was satisfied to a moral certainty and beyond a reasonable doubt “that the words, and acts, and conduct of the defendants unmistakably carried…