Page:Dakota Territory Reports Vol 4.djvu/187

 which it became apparent that his purpose was to plead guilty. The court thereupon carefully warned and admonished him of the solemn consequences of such a plea, and that it would be a plea of guilty of murder, and would be so entered, and not, as insisted by his counsel, a plea of some lesser crime; and further informed him that if he pleaded not guilty he could have the facts passed upon by a jury, who might find him guilty only of the lesser offense, or not guilty of any offer se. The defendant's counsel excepted to these admonitions, and, upon the court asking defendant whether he pleaded guilty or not guilty to the charge of murder as charged in the indictment, insisted that the court should ask the defendant whether he pleaded guilty or not guilty. The court, however, renewed the interrogatory: *'Do you plead guilty or not guilty to the charge of murder as charged in the indictment?" to which defendant replied, "Guilty." The court thereupon directed that the plea of guilty be entered to the charge of murder as set out in the indictment.

Upon the suggestion of the district attorney, and against the objection of defendant's counsel, the court subsequently, in the presence of the defendant and his counsel, and before pronouncing judgment, examined several witnesses for the purpose of informing itself as to the nature and circumstances of the offense; from all which it api^eared, as indeed was freely admitted, both then and upon the argument in this court, that the crime was one of very great atrocity; the defendant having confessed, and being abundantly corroborated by other evidence, that during the temporary absence of his employer he had murdered his wife and infant son with an axe after they had retired to bed, and that the motive of the crime was the plunder of a cash box kept in a trunk in Mrs. Snell's bed room.

A motion was made in arrest of judgment, but inasmuch as none of the reasons assigned in support thereof were based upon any defects in the indictment, it is unnecessary to consider them. The couit denied the motion, and thereupon passed judgment and sentence of death upon the defendant.

But one point is urged upon us as a ground for the reversal