<p>Criminal Law—Homicide—Motion to Set Aside Information—Legality of Commitment—Lapse of Time after Arrest—Appeal—Loss OF Jurisdiction not Shown.—Where the record on appeal of a defendant accused of murder shows that he was arrested and held for preliminary examination on the seventeenth day of September, and that the order holding the defendant to answer for murder was dated October 4th of the same year, and that the depositions of the witnesses taken upon the preliminary examination were used in evidence upon the hearing of the motion of the defendant to set aside the information, on the ground that no legal commitment was had, and that the justice lost jurisdiction of the case before the date of the commitment, but the depositions are not set forth in the record, and it does not appear but that the justice may have entered upon the examination immediately after the arrest, and continued to conduct it until the date of the commitment, no error appears in refusing the motion.</p> <p>Id.—Appointment of Reporter at Preliminary Examination—Error not Appearing.—In the absence of proof in the record that a reporter had acted or reported the testimony taken at the preliminary examination, or had certified thereto, no error can be predicated upon the ground that it does not properly appear that the shorthand reporter was appointed to take the evidence.</p> <p>Id.—Signature of District Attorney to Information—Official Designation— Omission of Name of State—Judicial Notice.—Where the information is properly entitled in the county and state, it is a sufficient compliance with the Penal Code that the information shall be subscribed by the district attorney, and he is not required to append the name either of the county or of the state to his signature; and where he does append the name of the county of which he is district attorney, but omits therefrom the name of the state, the court will take judicial notice that the designated county is in the state, and it is not a ground of objection that the name of the state is not also appended to his signature.</p> <p>Id.—Special Venire — Challenge to Panel — Disqualification of Sheriff — Piling of Sheriff’s Affidavit — Harmless Ruling. — Where a challenge to the panel of a special venire of jurors summoned by the sheriff was sustained, on the ground of the disqualification of the sheriff by reason of bias, and the testimony of the sheriff proves the bias, the defendant is not prejudiced by an order directing an affidavit to be made and filed by the sheriff embodying the substance of his testimony, or by an order refusing to strike out the affidavit, it appearing that the jurors were not present, and that the defendant could not be injured by the testimony or affidavit of the sheriff, and such orders can afford no ground of reversal, conceding, without deciding, that the filing of the affidavit was an irregularity.</p> <p>Id.—Permitting Jurors to Separate—Discretion.—It is matter resting in the discretion of the court to permit the jurors to separate during the progress of the trial, upon the several adjournments from day to day, after properly admonishing them, as provided by section 1122 of the Penal Code.</p> <p>Id.—Appointment of Elisor—Sickness of Coroner.—Where it appears that the sheriff is disqualified from acting by reason of bias, and that, by reason of sickness, the coroner is physically unable to perform the duties of his office, the court may appoint an elisor to take charge of the jury.</p> <p>Id.—Circumstantial Evidence—Incident Prior to Homicide—Conduct of Defendant—Sack and Pistol.—Where the homicide was caused by pistol shots, and the defendant was connected therewith by circumstantial evidence, showing, among other circumstances, the possession by him for several days before the homicide of a white flour sack, and a pistol of caliber corresponding to the bullets which caused the homicide, which flour sack and contents, including the pistol partially discharged, were afterward found in a thicket of brush near the scene of the murder, testimony is admissible to show that, during the trip from the place where the pistol was obtained to the vicinity of the homicide, defendant, three days prior to the homicide, stopped at a country residence, with the flour sack in his possession, and that he was discovered in the evening concealed under a bed, and, when discovered, went out, carrying his hand as if he were going to shoot, and that, having received the flour sack, he ran off the place—as an incident throwing light upon the act of the defendant, his appearance and belongings, at a period not remote from the day of the alleged murder.</p> <p>Id.—Evidence Tending to Establish Offense Charged—Attempt to Commit another Offense.—Although ordinarily evidence of another offense cannot be given, yet, whenever the case is such that proof of one crime tends to prove any fact material in the trial of another, such proof is admissible, and the fact that it may tend to prejudice the defendant in the minds of the jurors is no ground for its exclusion; and where the evidence tends to establish the offense charged, the fact that it tends also to show an attempt of the defendant to commit another offense does not render it inadmissible.</p> <p>Id.— Cross-examination of Defendant—Incomplete Record — Error not Presumed.—Where the scope of the testimony given by the defendant in his examination in chief shows that the questions propounded to him on cross-examination were within the rules enunciated by this court in previous decisions, or were unproductive of injury to the defendant, there is no ground of reversal therefor; and where the record does not contain all of the defendant’s examination in chief, it will not be presumed that the cross-examination was improperly allowed upon matter not testified to by the defendant in chief.</p> <p>Id.—Expert Evidence—Hypnotism of Defendant—Offer of Proof— Instruction. — Expert evidence of a hypnotist is not admissible to show that the defendant, when hypnotized by him, had made a statement to him in regard to his knowledge of the homicide, and had denied his guilt while in that condition, from which statements he was ready to testify that defendant is not guilty; and, after rejection of the oiler of such evidence, it is proper for the court to instruct the jury to disregard the offer, and that the law does not recognize hypnotism.</p> <p>Id.—Trial upon Information—Grand Juror Acting as Trial Juror— Improper Challenge.—Upon the trial of a defendant upon information, where it appears that the grand jury had had nothing to do with the case, it is not ground for challenge to a trial juror that he is a member of a grand jury which was assembled after the information was filed, and which had taken a recess to meet in the future, and had not been discharged.</p> <p>Id.—Death Warrant—Order after Judgment—Appeal—Review. — Where a death warrant is signed by the superior judge after the entry of judgment, it is appealable as an order made after judgment, and, when not separately appealed from, cannot be reviewed on appeal from the judgment and from an order denying a new trial.</p> <p>Id.—Reasonable Doubt — Instructions Refused and Given—Ambiguous Request—Unsuitable Propositions,—Where the instructions given by the court state the whole doctrine of reasonable doubt fully and properly to the jury, and taken as a whole, are as favorable to the defendants as the facts and the law will warrant, it is not error to refuse instructions requested by the defendant upon the subject of reasonable doubt, especially where the meaning of one of them is involved in doubt, and another asserts the uncalled-for proposition that “it is better that a hundred guilty persons escape punishment than that one who is innocent be punished.”</p>
