Anderson

Defendant, who was charged with murder and convicted of manslaughter, appeals from the judgment and likewise from an order denying him a new trial.

The homicide consisted in the killing of one G. B. Armanda on July 17, 1921, shortly after midnight, at the Montebello oil fields in Los Angeles County, and after defendant, the deceased, and three other workmen had left their work upon a well which they were drilling for the Union Oil Company. The killing, which was done by shooting Armanda as the latter stood facing defendant, who was seated in his automobile, was admitted; but it was claimed that it was done in necessary self-defense.

As is usual in such cases, there was a sharp conflict in the evidence. The version of the tragedy and of the events leading up to it, as given by witnesses for the prosecution—whose testimony, in view of the verdict of conviction, must be deemed to have been accepted by the jury as true—is substantially as follows: Defendant was the foreman of a crew of oil drillers at work on an oil rig of the Union Oil Company near Montebello. He had under him a crew of about four men, one of whom was the decedent. Work on the well was done by crews working in…