People v. Lew Fat

The appellant herein was convicted of murder in the first degree, his crime consisting in the alleged slaying of one Lum Bing, an elderly Chinese, in a building in Chinatown, in the city and county of San Francisco, on the afternoon of May 18, 1921. He appeals from the judgment following such conviction and urges several grounds of error upon his said appeal.

His first ground of alleged error is that the trial court erred in the admission of evidence of certain accusatory declarations made by the dying decedent in the presence of the arresting officers and of the defendant, and of the acts and conduct of the latter at the time such accusations were made. The first of these occurred within a few moments after the deceased had been shot and mortally wounded and after the defendant had been arrested within a short distance of the scene of the crime with a discharged and still smoking weapon in his hand. The arresting officer took the defendant into the presence of the wounded man and he testified that when the latter saw the defendant he pointed his finger at him and said in the English language, “That man shot me,” to which accusation the defendant made no • reply. A short time…