Benjamin

By an information filed in the superior court of Alameda County the defendant was charged with the crime of murder. He was convicted of murder in the first degree, and his penalty therefor—life imprisonment— was fixed by the verdict of the jury.

The facts of the ease as revealed by the evidence adduced upon the trial are substantially these: About the hour of 9 o’clock on the evening of March 4, 1916, Officer Gushe of the Oakland police department was seen to approach and place his hand upon the shoulder of a man who was standing or walking in the vicinity of Twelfth and Clay Streets in the city of Oakland. The officer, holding the man by the shoulder, proceeded a few steps, when the latter turned and engaged in a scuffle with the officer, during which a shot from a revolver was fired, after which the man broke the grasp of the officer and fled. The officer followed for a short distance, and after firing several ineffectual shots at the fleeing man, fell to the sidewalk as the result of a wound inflicted by a 32-caliber bullet, and which wound, it was subsequently shown, caused his death. The man continued his flight, and, although a crowd pursued him, made good his escape. The…