Goodrum

Under an indictment charging him with the crime of assault to commit murder, the defendant was convicted of the crime of assault with a deadly weapon, and was sentenced to imprisonment in the state prison for the term of eighteen months. This appeal is prosecuted by the defendant from the judgment and the order denying him a new trial. The assault was committed on the wife of the defendant, in the city of Red Bluff, on the twentieth day of December, 1915. *Page 432 Domestic dissensions had led to the separation of the parties, and for some little time prior to the date of the assault the defendant had not lived with his wife. The undisputed facts are: That on the said twentieth day of December, between the hours of 5 and 6 o'clock P.M., Mrs. Goodrum and her mother, Mrs. Harriet B. Reyon, who was then stopping at the home of the former, were on their way home from the business part of the city, when they were approached from the rear by the defendant. He placed his hand upon the shoulder of his wife and, addressing her, said: "Belle, I want to speak to you a minute." Both Mrs. Goodrum and Mrs. Reyon turned and faced him, and at the same time the defendant drew a revolver and…

In their petition, counsel for the people say: "On the outset of this matter we admit that the decision heretofore rendered in this case is correct in principle, but *Page 437 we claim that the people tried one case and the court decided another." The point is that the defendant, at the trial, tried his case solely upon the theory of temporary insanity brought on by "recent indulgence in alcoholism"; that such was the theory upon which the learned trial court instructed the jury, and that this court decided the case upon the erroneous supposition that the defense interposed by the defendant was that he was wholly irresponsible and not accountable in law for his act because of settled insanity superinduced by the excessive use of intoxicating liquors. In proof of their position, counsel for the people call attention to certain language of the attorney for the defendant in his opening statement to the jury, in which he declared: "In other words, I think, gentlemen, we will show you beyond question in this case that Frank Goodrum, at the time this assault was made, knew nothing about it; that he was simply laboring under a case of delirium tremens — simply insane from the…