People v. Brust

Defendant has been found guilty of the first degree murders of his estranged wife and his stepson. The jury had been instructed that “if you should fix the penalty as death, you will not specify the death penalty in the verdict, and you will say nothing about punishment in the verdict”; so instructed, they returned verdicts silent as to penalty. Defendant was also convicted of assault upon his stepdaughter with a deadly weapon with intent to commit murder. Jury trial on his plea of not guilty by reason of insanity was waived and the court found that defendant was sane at the time of the…