Gibson

Defendants were convicted of murder in the first degree in the killing of one Fletcher Burton, and sentenced to the state, prison for life. They appeal from the judgment and from an order denying them a new trial.

Numerous errors are assigned.

1. It is first urged, and at considerable length, that the evidence is insufficient to sustain the verdict. It will require but a statement of its salient features, we think, to show that this contention is wholly without merit.

The theory upon which the case was tried by the prosecution was that the deceased was killed as a result of a criminal conspiracy between the defendants. The evidence was largely, if not wholly, circumstantial, but it tended to establish this state of facts:

The alleged homicide occurred on Sunday, the twenty-seventh day of November, 1892, and was the result of trouble between defendants and the Burton brothers over a mining claim. This mining claim had been “discovered earlier in the month of November by Charles Gibson, one of the defendants, and David Burton, a brother of the deceased, who had married a sister of the defendants. Shortly after the discovery of the mine, and about ten days or so before the…