Wechter v. People

Plaintiff in error, defendant below, was convicted of the crime of murder in the first degree. The jury fixed the penalty at death, -and the court pronounced sentence accordingly. •

*91At the trial the defendant requested the court to instruct the jury that if they found him guilty of homicide committed in the perpetration, or attempted perpetration, of robbery, and not by a deliberate act of homicide, that they should find him guilty of murder in the first degree, but in such case their verdict would stand upon circumstantial evidence, and they could not fix the penalty at death. This request…