People v. Ah Teung

The defendant was convicted and sentenced to the state prison for the term of five years for the crime of assisting one Lee Yick, confined in the county jail of Alameda County, to escape therefrom. From this judgment, and an order denying his motion for a new trial, the defendant has appealed to this court.

Upon the trial, the defendant requested the court to give the following instruction, which was refused: “ It is not unlawful for one who is restrained unlawfully, and without authority and process of law, to withdraw from his place of confinement and depart therefrom. Such *422 departure is not an escape, within the meaning of the law. And so, likewise, when one assists, without violence, a person who is confined without any authority of law, and without any process of law, to depart from his place of confinement.”

It appears from the evidence that Lee Yick, whom the defendant is accused of assisting to escape, was, with the consent of a deputy sheriff in charge thereof, placed in the Alameda County jail by a deputy United States marshal for the southern district of California, and that the only authority of said deputy marshal consisted of a “finding ” made by a United…