Erno

Ronald Charles Brno and William A. Hard were charged with the murder of Fred Skeen at the home of the decedent’s mother, in Siskiyou County. A motion for separate trials was denied. The jury returned a verdict of murder in the first degree, and made no recommendation. The trial court thereupon sentenced both defendants to pay the extreme penalty. As the defendant Hard was under the age of eighteen years at the time of the commission of the crime, the Governor has commuted his sentence to life imprisonment. Bach of the defendants has appealed. .

In the latter part of September, 1923, Hard and Brno, with another young man by the name of Lowe, left Los Angeles in an automobile for the northern part of the state on a trapping expedition. They were joined by a man named Taylor, an experienced trapper, who suggested that Siskiyou County was a likely place for such a venture. The four then went to the Skeen ranch, where, for a time, they remained in a cabin about half a mile from the ranch-house. Taylor abandoned the venture, and Lowe, becoming dissatisfied, went to Los Angeles. Brno was employed by the Skeens as a utility man, receiving, in addition to his wages, board and lodging at…