In People v. Dail (1943) 22 Cal.2d 642, the trial court erroneously instructed the jury to the effect that the testimony of one of the key prosecution witnesses, who was also an accomplice, should not be discredited because he had in fact pled guilty to some of the same charges facing the defendants. The court compounded this error by instructing the jury that the credibility of an accomplice's testimony was to be judged by the same standard as a nonaccomplice witness. The court had previously given the jury the proper instruction on how to assess an accomplice's testimony, which created a serious conflict. To add further insult, the court gave the erroneous instruction during its comments on the state of the evidence. The court's comments as to the demeanor of the accomplices, when they testified, further bolstered the believability of the accomplices' testimony against the defendants. The inconsistent and erroneous instructions required reversal of the convictions.