People v. Mock Ming Fat

pro tem. — Appellants were found guilty of the crime of assault with intent to commit murder.

This case presents but a single question on appeal. Appellants assign as error the refusal of the trial court to give the following instruction: “If you believe from the evidence that defendants, or any of them, did not commit an assault upon the person of Yee Moon with a deadly weapon, with intent to commit murder, and if you believe from the evidence that defendants, or any of them, did commit an assault upon Yee Moon with a deadly weapon without the intent to commit murder, then it is your duty to find the said Yee Moon guilty of an assault with a deadly weapon.”. It appears from the evidence that on the nineteenth day of August, 1926, a “state of war” existed between certain Chinese tongs, the Hop Sing Tong and Bing Kong Tong; that Yee Moon, the complaining witness, knowing that the defendants were driving an automobile through Santa Barbara, armed himself with a revolver, left the headquarters of the Hop Sing Tong in said city, and proceeded in his automobile to a point in the streets of Santa Barbara, where shooting commenced between the defendants and the prosecuting witness. The…