People v. Patterson

CURTIS, J.

The defendant was found guilty of the crime of perjury. On April 19, 1922, in the trial of a criminal action entitled “The People of the State of California

vs.

James Wheaton and Calvin Rowell, ’ ’ in the superior court of the county of Los Angeles, appellant testified on behalf of defendant Wheaton in said action. The defendants Wheaton and Rowell were on trial for the crime of the murder of two policemen of the city of Los Angeles, alleged to have been committed in said city on the night of December 6, 1921, between the hours of 10 and 11 o’clock of said night. The defendant testified in said action that Wheaton, one of said defendants in said action, was at the home of said defendant Patterson in the city of Los Angeles on the night

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of December 6, 1921, from about the hour of 7 o’clock until the hour of 11 o’clock of said night. On the trial of the defendant Patterson for the crime of perjury his testimony, given in the Wheaton-Rowell case, was introduced in evidence. The prosecution then called as a witness Harry C. Hickok. Hickok testified that he was a police officer and that he was present at a conversation between the defendant Patterson and a deputy district attorney" of the county of Los Angeles, which conversation took place shortly after the arrest of the defendant, on the nineteenth day of April, 1922, immediately following the giving of his testimony in the Wheaton-Rowell case. The witness Hickok further testified that the deputy district attorney on this occasion asked the defendant Patterson if he realized what a serious situation he had gotten himself into by testifying before the superior court, under oath, to facts which he did not believe to be true; that the deputy district attorney then read to the defendant purported confessions of Wheaton and Rowell, in which each stated that on the night of December 6, 1921, they were present at the scene of the murder and were in a Ford car with three other men, who killed the two policemen. After the witness Hickok had testified to the reading of these confessions to the defendant by the deputy district attorney, the prosecution then offered them in evidence, stating that “They are offered in connection with the statements made by the defendant and for the light that they throw on what he subsequently said.” Over the objections of the defendant, the court ruled that the witness Hickok might read these confessions to the jury as a part of the conversation between the deputy district attorney and the defendant. The witness Hickok then read to the-jury two purported confessions signed by Wheaton, and one signed by Rowell. These confessions of Wheaton and Rowell contained statements, which, if true, tended strongly to show that Wheaton was not at the defendant’s home on the evening of December 6, 1921. After the reading of each of these documents the defendant moved to strike them out on the ground that they were not binding upon the defendant and that, as against him, they were incompetent. These motions the court denied.