People v. Vaiz

The defendant has been convicted of, and sentenced to life imprisonment for, murder of the first degree. On this appeal the sole contention is that “there is no evidence of wilful, deliberate premeditation" or of “the specific intent to kill" and, hence, that the evidence establishes at most murder of the second degree.

Concerning the degrees of murder Judge Fricke in his text, “California Criminal Law" (Los Angeles Review, 1927, pp. 68, 69) says; “In dividing murder into degrees the Legislature intended to assign to the first as deserving of greater punishment, all murders of a cruel and…