People v. Galbraith

[762]

NOTJRSE, J.

The defendant was charged with perjury alleged to have been committed in the course of his testimony as a witness in the ease of

People

v.

Jeff Galbraith

and others who were charged with the robbery of the Pergola Cafe, a resort located seventeen miles out of Oakland, on the night of January 13, 1923. The information charged that during the course of said trial the defendant herein, after being duly sworn as a witness, testified that he had met Jeff Galbraith in the city of Tulare, California, early in the morning* of the 13th of January and had spent the whole day with him, leaving him about 5 or 5 :30 o’clock P. M.; that he had driven with him out to a camp called Liggett’s, which place he left at about 4 P. M. with the said Jeff Galbraith, driving with him back to the town of Tulare; that he left Jeff on the street in Tulare and went to his own home and then to the freight yards, where he took a train out of Tulare the same night.

The evidence at the perjury trial consisted of the direct testimony of one George Ducker directly showing the falsity of all the testimony given by the defendant herein, and the corroborating testimony of other witnesses tending to show that the entire story of the defendant was a fabrica^ tion. Ducker testified that between the hours of 4 and 5 P. M. on the 13th of January, 1923, he picked up> Jeff Galbraith and two others at a place in Modesto, which was shown to be 137 miles from Tulare; that he carried these parties in his automobile through the San Joaquin valley, through Tracy and d'own to Oakland, a distance of eighty-six miles, where they all had their dinner, and then from Oakland out to the Pergola Cafe, a distance of seventeen miles, where the occupants of the car held up and robbed the cafe at about 10:30 or 10:45 P. M. of that night. It was shown that if Jeff Galbraith had traveled this route x from Tulare he would have covered a distance of 240 miles in about five hours, and it was also shown that no trains left Tulare for the north within the time mentioned. The witness Ducker gave a detailed account of the automobile ride from Modesto to the cafe, and his testimony that Jeff Galbraith took part in the robbery of the cafe at 10:30 that evening was expressly corroborated by another witness who saw him on that occasion. Though the corroboration of the