Plyler

—Defendant has been convicted of mayhem, and appeals from the judgment and order denying his motion for a new trial.

Under objection and exception the court allowed various jurors upon their voir dire to answer the question, “Do you believe thait a man has the right to take the law into his own hands and thereby commit a crime?” The attorney general contends that the question was clearly proper for the purpose of securing light upon the minds of the jurors with a view to a peremptory challenge, and for authority relies upon People v. Car Boy, 57 Cal. 102 . It would seem that People v. Hamilton, 6 2 Cal. 378 , to some degree at least, curtails the doctrine of the previous case. Tet, aside from any question of peremptory challenge, we deem the action of the court in allowing the question entirely proper. It is, in effect, asking the prospective juror, if taken upon the panel will he decide the case according to the law and the evidence. Certainly, a juror who declares that he believes a party is justified in taking the law into his own hands in certain cases, notwithstanding he commits a crime thereby, should not be taken upon a jury. The identical case upon trial might be one of…