Young

Defendant was found guilty of first degree murder without recommendation of leniency in the Superior Court of Los Angeles County which pronounced *452 the death sentence and denied a motion for a new trial. The cause comes before this court on an automatic appeal.

The evidence establishes the following facts: Defendant, twenty-six years old and unmarried, was in love with Ruth Lugo, a twenty-nine year old Mexican woman who had been twice married and had four children. Her refusal to marry him and her plea that they stop seeing each other led the defendant to brooding which culminated in his determination to kill her and himself. To that end he stole a gun, purchased cartridges and wrote a letter outlining his plan to be given to his mother. On June 10, 1940, he called on Ruth Lugo and tried to persuade her to marry him. Failing to do so, he came over to her chair, sat in her lap, and fired two shots through her chest, causing her death. Members of the family, residing in the same house and in near-by houses, heard the shots and rushed into the room where they found the defendant with a gun in his hand near the body of Ruth Lugo. The shot which he fired at himself just missed…