People v. Luce

CRAIG, J.

Upon three charges of felony arising from a single transaction, a jury found the defendant guilty. He appealed from the judgments entered accordingly, and from an order denying his motion for a new trial.

The defendant was positively identified by the complaining witness, who testified that the defendant inflicted wounds upon his person by striking him, demanding that he open the safe, and finally shot him, and fled. Other witnesses identified the defendant as having ridden with them from that vicinity immediately following the attack. A revolver and a sweater which he had discarded were recovered, and also identified. During direct examination of the defendant by his counsel and in an effort to establish an alibi, objections by the People to offered testimony that he had been with a third party at the time of the commission of the offense and had heard him state that he had “shot a man” were sustained. This was hearsay and the ruling was correct. That evidence which does not tend to disprove established facts cannot avail the party ^offering it, and that “evidence 1 which does not derive its force solely from the credit to be given to the witness himself, but rests, also, in part, on the veracity and competency of some other person’ (1 Greenleaf, Ev., par. 99; 1 Phil., Ev. 169), is as self-evident

[3]

as a truism”, is a familiar rule.

(People

v.

Smith,

55 Cal. App. 324 [203 Pac. 816].) Other cases may be cited to the same rule:

People

v.

Raber,

168 Cal. 316 [143 Pac. 317];

People

v.

Mendez,

193 Cal. 39 [223 Pac. 65];

People

v.