People v. Pryal

THE COURT.

This is an appeal from a judgment of conviction in a proceeding against the defendant for a criminal libel. The alleged libel consisted in the writing of a letter by the defendant to one Isabel Abbott, containing a charge of forgery against one John A. Sands, consisting of the statement that “Sands forged both Mrs. Pryal’s and my name to certain legal documents.”

Upon the trial of the case the defendant Pryal not only made no effort to prove the truth of this assertion, but expressly admitted, and upon this appeal concedes, that the charge of forgery was untrue. The defendant, however, upon the trial undertook to offer in evidence a large number of documents, including certain letters which had passed be

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tween himself and said Sands while the latter was acting as his attorney in a certain litigation, which letters and documents the defendant contended were admissible as tending to show his intention in uttering this libel, and as proving that it was published with good motives and justifiable ends. The court ruled out this evidence; and it is this ruling of the court that the defendant now chiefly relies upon as error requiring a reversal upon this appeal.

We think the trial court committed no error in refusing to admit the evidence thus proffered by the defendant. The charge against the prosecuting witness of having committed the crime of forgery was made in express and unmistakable terms. That it was false the defendant admits; and that it was made and published willfully and deliberately there can be no question. The defendant was, therefore, in uttering this libel, engaged in the deliberate commission of an unlawful act for the purpose of injuring another. The Code of Civil Procedure, in enumerating those presumptions which are deemed conclusive, gives (1) a malicious and guilty intent from the deliberate commission of an unlawful act for the purpose of injuring another. (Code Civ. Proc., sec. 1962.) If this general provision of our law has application to prosecutions for criminal libel, it would necessarily follow that the proffered proof of the defendant was properly excluded by the court. The appellant, however, contends that this rule is modified in its application to trials for criminal libel, by the terms of sections 250 and 251 of the Penal Code. These sections read as follows: