Soeder

The defendant was charged by information filed in the superior court of the city and county of San Francisco with the crime of murder, alleged to have been committed on January 10, 1904, by the unlawful killing of one Joseph Blaise, and having been convicted of murder in the first degree and adjudged to suffer death, appeals from the judgment and from an order denying his motion for a new trial.

There is not, and could not well be, upon the record before us, any claim that the evidence adduced on the trial was insufficient to support the verdict, and it will therefore be unnecessary to state the evidence, except in so far as is essential to a proper understanding of the points made for reversal.

Between eight and nine o’clock A. m. on January 11, 1904, the body of Blaise was found lying on the west side of Taylor Street, between Vallejo and Green streets, in the city of San Francisco. The evidence afforded by the condition of the body and of the ground where it lay was clear and convincing to the effect that Blaise had been foully murdered at that place the evening before, by being first struck down from behind with some blunt instrument, and then killed by a knife driven into…