Crimm

The appellant Grimm and three other inmates of Folsom Prison were jointly charged with the murder of one Fred E. Smith, also an inmate, in an information filed by the District Attorney of Sacramento County. Each defendant entered a plea of not guilty. Early in the trial Grimm’s motion to change his plea to one of guilty to a charge of manslaughter was denied. At the conclusion of a protracted trial the jury returned separate verdicts finding Grimm guilty of murder of the first degree, without recommendation, and finding each of the three codefendants not guilty. Grimm prosecutes this appeal from the judgment imposing the death penalty and from the order denying a new trial.

The deceased, an elderly inmate, was found dead on December 28, 1940, in his cabin on “flower garden hill,” a portion of the prison premises where he was engaged in gardening. His head and body had many lacerations and knife wounds, which the prison doctor testified had caused death. Early in the trial Grimm took the stand as a prosecution witness and related a story that implicated him and the codefendant Ferrow as “look-outs” and codefendants Freeman and Walker as the actual perpetrators of the homicide. He…