State v. Stentz

• Decision Date: 11 December 1903
• Citation: 33 Wash. 444,74 P. 588
• Court: Washington Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE v. STENTZ.

74 P. 588

33 Wash. 444

STATE v. STENTZ.

Supreme Court of Washington

December 11, 1903

Appeal from Superior Court, Spokane County; William E. Richardson Judge.

Frank Stentz was convicted of homicide, and appeals. Affirmed.

See 70 P. 241.

Sullivan Nuzum & Nuzum, for appellant.

Horace Kimball and Miles Poindexter, for the State.

MOUNT J.

This is a second appeal in this case. When the case was here before (30 Wash. 142, 70 P. 241), it was reversed and remanded to the lower court for a new trial. It has since been retried and a verdict of guilty as charged again returned. The only errors alleged are upon the instructions of the trial court given at the last trial. Upon the question of flight the court instructed the jury as follows: '(4) The flight of a person immediately after the commission of a crime, if you find from the evidence that the plaintiff fled, or after a crime has been committed with which he is charged, is a circumstance in establishing his guilt not sufficient in itself to establish guilt, but a circumstance which the jury may consider in determining the probabilities for or against him--the probabilities of his guilt or innocence. The weight to which that circumstance is entitled is a matter for the jury to determine in connection with all the facts called out in the case.'

It is claimed (1) that this instruction assumes the fact that defendant fled; (2) that the court did not instruct the jury as to the weight to be given to the fact of flight; (3) that there is no evidence in the case to justify the instruction. None of these contentions can be sustained. The effect of the instruction is to tell the jury that, if they found as a matter of fact that the defendant fled after the commission of the crime with which he was charged, then such flight was a circumstance not in itself sufficient to establish guilt, but which the jury may consider in determining that question, the weight of which circumstance is for the jury to determine in connection with all the facts. There is no assumption here that the defendant fled, but the jury are told that, if they found that he did flee, then they should weigh this fact as a circumstance in the case. Upon the weight they should give this circumstance the court properly instructed the jury. The evidence also clearly justifies an instruction upon the question. It shows conclusively that, after the defendant had run down an unoffending bicyclist upon a broad public highway in full daylight, and killed him, defendant, instead of keeping the main public road, turned off into an obscure road and sought to avoid meeting or being recognized by other persons, and sought to avoid the town into which he was going, and also changed his course from toward his home, and was making toward the city of Spokane when he was arrested. His companions also separated from him and left him; none of them stopped or went back to render assistance to the man whom they had killed, and who they must have known was seriously if not fatally injured.

Appellant requested the court to give the following instructions:

'(7) I instruct you as a matter of law, should you find from the evidence in this case that prior to the accident mentioned in the information this defendant bore in the neighborhood in which he lived a good reputation for peace and quietness and as a lawabiding citizen, that such fact, if you find that such fact is proven by the evidence in this case, may of itself be sufficient to generate in your minds a reasonable doubt upon which you may acquit the defendant.

'(8) If you find from the evidence in the case that the defendant has proved a good character as a man of peace and quietness and as a law-abiding citizen, the law says that such good character may be sufficient to create a reasonable doubt of guilt, although no such doubt would have existed but for such good character.'

'(10) You are further instructed that good character is an important fact with every man, and never more so than when he is put on trial charged with an offense which is rendered improbable in the last degree by a uniform course of life wholly inconsistent with any such crime. There are

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