Longland

Defendant appeals from the judgment pronounced following her conviction of the crime of arson.

The subject of the arson was a dwelling-house situated upon a ranch located in Tulare County, owned by defendant, and which was destroyed by fire on February 26, 1919, while defendant was absent therefrom and in the state of Nevada.

The evidence upon which she was convicted is that of a confessed accomplice, Henry Ingram, and James Duffy, a detective, whose corroborative testimony, notwithstanding its questionable character, the jury within its province accepted as true.

According to Ingram’s testimony, his acquaintance with defendant began in 1908. Later, in 1918, a relation of intimate friendship ripened into an engagement of marriage, which existed at the time when he says that, acting at defendant’s request and pursuant to an agreement made with her so to do, he, while she was in Nevada, set the fire whereby the dwelling-house was destroyed; that her purpose, as repeatedly stated to him, in wishing the house burned, was to render it impossible for Mr. Willard, with whom she was involved in litigation as to the right to possession of the property, and who, with his mother, resided…