Cramer

— This is an automatic appeal from a judgment of conviction of first degree murder imposing the death penalty on the defendant. (See § 1239, Pen. Code.)

The District Attorney of the City and County of San Francisco filed an information charging defendant with the murder of one Ernest Saxton on July 5, 1942, and with prior convictions of robbery and grand theft. At the time set for arraignment, defendant expressed a desire to discharge his attorney and to enter a plea of guilty, but his counsel, over defendant’s objection, suggested that a doubt existed as to defendant’s sanity. Further proceedings under the information were suspended and, a jury having been waived, a hearing was had before the court to inquire into defendant’s sanity. To assist it in the determination of this issue, the court appointed three eminent psychiatrists to examine defendant and to submit findings. An exhaustive hearing was had at which evidence was adduced tending to show insanity in certain of the defendant’s ancestors and also prior adjudications of insanity against the defendant himself. There is also evidence of defendant’s subsequent discharge as sane and, in addition, his own testimony that he had…