People v. Phillips

Information for murder. Verdict of guilty of murder in the second degree and judgment ordering imprisonment in state’s prison for term of fifty years.

The defendant, the man whom he killed, Jim Alonzo, and all the witnesses who testified, except the officers and the complaining witness, were California Indians. The complaining witness, who is a Mexican and the son in law of the deceased, was the only witness, other than the officers, who could make himself fully understood in English; the others being assisted more or less by an interpreter who was sworn to interpret from English into Indian…