Hill

The defendant was convicted of murder in the first degree, and was sentenced to a life imprisonment in the state prison. He appeals from the judgment and from an order denying a new trial. The appellant is a youth, and at the time of the homicide upon which the charge of murder was based he was only eighteen years and some months old. The homicide occurred on a road about a mile and a half from a resort known as the Fresno Hot Springs, at which place there was a hotel, saloon, croquet ground, et cetera. About 9 o’clock in the evening of June 27, 1897, the appellant left said springs in a buggy with a young companion named Tony Loveall, to go to his home, which was about five or six miles distant. At the same time the deceased, Lloyd Duke, also left the springs in a buggy, in which were also two other persons named Smoot and Taylor. All these persons had been together in the saloon at the springs, where something had been said about a bet on a wrestle between the defendant and the deceased, in which the deceased said that he would either wrestle or fight the defendant. Some months before that time the deceased had whipped the appellant at another place. After the parties had…