People v. Choy Ah Sing

The defendant was convicted of an assault With a deadly weapon; from the judgment in the prem *277 ises, and an order denying a new trial, this appeal is prosecuted.

The first ground of error alleged is, that the court instructed the jury wrongfully with reference to the running away of the defendant, after the striking of the blow with a deadly weapon, which he was found, by the jury, to have feloniously inflicted upon the person of one Ah Mow. The part of the charge of the court to which objection is made reads as follows: “ The flight of the defendant is a circumstance tending to establish his guilt, but is not, of itself alone, sufficient to justify a verdict of guilty. The jury may take the evidence of such flight into consideration in connection with the other circumstances and the testimony in the case.”

The record shows that upon the trial there was evidence of the running away of the defendant from the place where he had stricken the prosecuting witness, Ah Mow, with an iron bar; but while the prosecution contended that this running away was a flight from the scene, as of one guilty of the crime charged, the defendant claimed in his testimony that he did so to avoid the…