People v. Donguli

<p>Criminal Law — Appeal — Review of Instructions. — Where the record on appeal in a criminal action contains no part of the evidence, the appellate court will not reverse the judgment on account of instructions alleged to be erroneous, unless it appears that such instruction would have been erroneous under every conceivable state of facts.</p> <p>Id.—Instruction as to Reasonable Doubt — Natural Law.— An instruction that the jury are not at liberty to go outside of the evidence in the case to find a reason for doubting the guilt or innocence of the defendant is not subject to the objection that it excludes a doubt founded upon the knowledge of natural laws inconsistent with the hypothesis of guilt contended for by the prosecution, when there is nothing in the record to indicate that the prosecution contended for any hypothesis inconsistent with natural law, or that evidence of any natural law would have been relevant or material.</p> <p>Id. — Homicide — Self-defense — Apparent Danger — Belief of Defendant — Instruction. — Where a homicide is sought to be justified</p> <p>on the ground of self-defense in view of apparent danger, a part of an instruction, to the effect that it must appear to the jury that the danger to the defendant must be “present, apparent, and imminent,” though not by itself clearly distinguishing between actual and apparent danger, could not be misunderstood by the jury, if the whole instruction, properly construed by reading all parts of it together, evidently does not mean that the danger must be real or actual, but means only that to justify the killing on the ground of self-defense, it must have been done under a well-founded belief that it was absolutely necessary, to save the defendant from death or great bodily harm.</p> <p>Id__Well-founded Belief of Danger.—A belief that the danger is such as to justify the killing may be “well founded,” although there may be no actual danger.</p>