10 Wash. 292 | Wash. | 1894
ON motion to dismiss appeal.
Appellant was charged in the superior court of the state of Washington, for King county, with the crime of murder in the first degree. He entered a plea of guilty upon his arraignment. In accordance with the provisions of the law, a jury was thereafter empaneled for the purpose of ascertaining the degree of murder of which defendant was guilty and to assess the punishment therefor, and the jury, after hearing the evidence and being charged by the court as to the law, rendered a verdict that appellant was guilty of murder in the first degree and that he suffer death. No motion for a new trial was ever made in said cause, or served upon the respondent’s counsel, or filed in said cause, and no motion in arrest of judgment was ever made in said cause, or served upon respondent’s counsel, or filed in said cause. Thereafter, on the 20th day of October, 1894, the court pronounced, rendered and entered judgment upon and against the said Thomas Blanck, the defendant and appellant here, in accordance with said verdict. It appears that no proposed bill of exceptions or proposed statement of facts has ever been filed in the office of the clerk of said court, or served upon
The state, through its attorney, urges in support of this motion the doctrine of waiver ; and while it is true that the appellant by his plea of guilty probably waived the right to a trial on the merits, yet, inasmuch as the law provides that the jury must find the grade of the crime on evidence submitted to it for that purpose, he has not waived any rights to appeal from any error which may have been committed in the proceedings which were instituted by reason of this provision of the law, either in relation to the introduction of testimony, or the instructions of the court, or anything of that character. And while it is true that the thirty days for filing the statement of facts have expired, yet under the provision of the law which allows the court the power, by stipulation of the parties or for good cause shown, to enlarge the time of the settlement of the statement of facts either before or after the expiration of the thirty days, and the time which the law allows for such action of the court in enlarging such time not yet having expired, it seems to us that this motion is premature ; for no action of the appellant in waiving the right of trial on the merits, as shown by his plea of guilty, in any manner waives his right to appeal from any subsequent errors which we have before alluded to. The fact that he gave notice of appeal affirmatively disclaims the idea of a waiver, so far as his right of
We do not know that the case would be different were this a civil action ; but certainly where it involves the life of a human being, the court could not afford to too strictly construe the statute in aid of the destruction of appellant’s right of appeal.
The motion will therefore be denied.
