Woods

Defendant John Woods, forty-eight years old, by profession a waiter on the Southern Pacific trains, was charged by information with murder committed in Alameda County on July 26, 1936, and entered a plea of not guilty. *443 The jury returned a verdict of first degree murder as charged, without recommendation. Defendant moved for a new trial. The motion was denied, and judgment pronounced that he pay the death penalty. He thereupon filed a statement of grounds of appeal and request for transcript, wherein he alleged that the district attorney had been guilty of prejudicial misconduct, and that the court had erred in its rulings during the trial and in directing the jury; also in refusing to reduce the degree of the crime.

An examination of the record shows abundant evidence in support of the verdict, and no error prejudicial to defendant appears. Nor does there appear to be any possible basis for reversal of the judgment or reduction of the degree of the crime.

Early in the evening of July 26, 1936, defendant, the deceased, Henry Shepherd, and others were participants in a card game of black jack in a house located at 1523 Eighth Street, Oakland. The game had been in progress…