People v. Glass

[EDITORS' NOTE: THIS PAGE CONTAINS HEADNOTES. HEADNOTES ARE NOT AN OFFICIAL PRODUCT OF THE COURT, THEREFORE THEY ARE NOT DISPLAYED.] *Page 652

[EDITORS' NOTE: THIS PAGE CONTAINS HEADNOTES. HEADNOTES ARE NOT AN OFFICIAL PRODUCT OF THE COURT, THEREFORE THEY ARE NOT DISPLAYED.] *Page 653 A hearing before this court was granted from the decision rendered by the court of appeals of the first appellate district. Upon due consideration we adopt the opinion and views of the court of appeal, saving upon two propositions which will hereinafter be noted.

Amplification of certain of the propositions discussed and *Page 654 decided by the court of appeal is called for in answer to the considerations pressed upon this court in the petition for rehearing.

1. A vast mass of evidence was introduced in this case which, for brevity, may be designated evidence touching the Oakland franchise. Admittedly, the transactions covered by this evidence, in point of time, long antedated any of the occurrences properly embraced within the charge of bribery. Admittedly, also, the transactions were entirely separate and distinct, the earlier one having no causal connection with the latter. By the Oakland evidence it was sought to be shown that the telephone company, with which defendant, Glass, was connected, in an endeavor to prevent competition in the city of Oakland and to exclude from that territory the Home Telephone Company, its competitor, and an applicant for a franchise, had itself, through a third person — "a dummy" — secured a franchise, and had aided and abetted in the organization of a corporation which did not enter the field of competition and was not designed to enter the field of competition, but was organized and kept in existence for the purpose of holding the franchise and raising objection to the issuance of a third franchise to the Home Telephone Company, upon the ground that two companies were already in the field and that it was useless and injurious to them that a franchise should be issued to a third corporation. Most of what was done in this regard was done not by Mr. Glass but by Mr. Sabin, the then president of the company. To the repeated objections of the defendant's counsel to the introduction of this vast mass of testimony, the only reason assigned by the court for its admission is found in the statement that "it (the evidence) was all addressed to the question of the activities of this defendant in the corporation during the period that is material here." This language lacks in lucidity much to be desired. The only "activities" of the defendant which could be legitimately inquired into under this charge of bribery were activities having a bearing thereon and a connection therewith. The only "period that is material here" is the period from the formation of the alleged conspiracy to bribe the San Francisco supervisors down to and including the criminal accomplishment of the conspiracy upon which this charge of felony is based. It should seem unnecessary to state — but apparently *Page 655 it is not — that a multitude of acts, facts, and happenings upon which men base their opinions and judgments of their fellowmen do not come within the definition and scope of evidence as known to our law. If a man is informed, and believes his informant, that another man is dissolute, is a gambler, is an associate of known thieves, is a petty larcenist, and makes his home in a house of prostitution, he will justly look upon such a person with suspicion, will properly govern his dealings and relations with that person by this information, and would most naturally say, if he learned that the man had been arrested for burglary, that "it was to be expected." Yet, upon the trial of that man for burglary, no word of these matters would be admissible against him. Not because they would not have a tendency to show that a man of such character would be much more likely to commit the given offense than would a man of proven upright and honorable life, but because the law, for reasons good and sufficient unto itself, has declared that a man shall be put upon trial for but one offense, and that he shall not be embarrassed by being called upon to defend or exculpate himself, or to explain any damaging act or fact which is not embraced within the charge he is called upon to meet. The law will not even permit a defendant's reputation to be assailed unless he shall himself have made that reputation an issue in the case. This, perhaps undue, tenderness goes to the extent that his guilt of petty offenses may not even be shown, and in his impeachment it may be established against him only that he has been previously convicted of a felony. It would, no doubt, have made most potently against this defendant in the minds of the jurors if, for example, it could have been shown that in this separate and distinct Oakland transaction he had bribed the councilmen there. But no one has been bold enough to assert that such evidence would be admissible, and the decisions of every court, including our own, are against its admissibility. Not only is the prosecution thus forbidden to prove another crime, but the law does not sanction the introduction of evidence falling short of crime and designed merely to degrade and prejudice the defendant in the minds of the jury. (Commonwealth v. Jackson, 132 Mass. 16; People v. Molineux,168 N.Y. 264, [61 N.E. 286].) As has been said, the language of the court holding that it was permissible to show "the activities of the *Page 656 defendant during the period that is material here" is not illuminating, nor is it adopted by the people in their briefs. By the people it is contended: 1. That the evidence is admissible as showing identity of plan; 2. As showing motive, and, 3. If inadmissible, still, as the evidence did not tend to prove any other crime against the defendant, its admission was without injury. The People's brief declares it to be admissible as showing "identity and plan." We construe this to mean identity of plan, because, of course, the identity of the defendant was never for a moment in question. Identity of plan must mean a desire and effort upon the part of the Pacific States Telephone and Telegraph Company to exclude competition in Oakland, and the same desire and effort displayed to exclude competition in San Francisco. But indisputably there was no identity of plan. It is not contended that in any of the Oakland transactions any crime was committed, while the contention is that in the San Francisco transaction crime, and nothing but crime, was contemplated and perpetrated. As to the second reason assigned, that of motive, there never was any doubt, never any question, never any suggestion from any source whatsoever, but that if this crime was committed, it was committed for the sole and single purpose of preventing competition. Indeed, the uncontradicted evidence of the supervisors, if direct evidence upon so plain a proposition was needed, was all to this effect. A boy of ten years might justly be regarded as gravely deficient in intellect who would need any enlightenment upon so plain a proposition. In fact, so far from the question of the motive ever having been in doubt, it would call for the acutest ingenuity to conceive of any other motive than this most obvious one. Yet, nevertheless, it is said that this vast mass of evidence, dealing with transactions wholly detached in time and place, is admissible as establishing the motive which prompted the defendant to commit an alleged crime, separate and distinct from the Oakland transactions in time, in place, and in methods. The real reason why the evidence was offered is most obvious. It was not offered to show motive. It was not offered to show identity and plan or identity of plan. These are the veriest pretenses. It was designed to besmirch and degrade the defendant and to be made use of in argument, to show that the defendant had gone to the length of organizing *Page 657 a fraudulent corporation, and by secret device and artful chicane had endeavored to prevent honest competition; that the defendant had gone to the border line of crime in the Oakland transaction and found, that stopping there, his efforts to prevent competition were without success. What more natural, therefore, than that when the same problem arose in San Francisco, the defendant, finding even the efforts of fraud and trickery unavailable, should have stepped over the line and become a law-breaker and a criminal? Such, we say, was the obvious purpose for which the evidence was introduced, and this the briefs of the People here on file establish. For in those briefs, while endeavoring to support the admissibility of the evidence on the grounds above stated, it is said that if "the evidence also casts suspicion on defendant he cannot be heard to complain." In the history of the transactions Glass is charged with having organized this "bogus" company. There is described the policy of the Pacific States Telephone and Telegraph Company employing political bosses and paying salaries to supervisors. It is directly stated that "the history of the contest waged against the Home Company in Oakland shows so clearly Glass's activity in his company's behalf; . . . these and many other circumstances lead irresistibly to the conclusion that Louis Glass, vice-president, acting president, and general manager of the Pacific States Telephone and Telegraph Company, aided, abetted, advised, directed and encouraged Halsey to pay the bribe to Lonergan." And, finally, again, quoting from the People's brief it is said: "To Glass, this experience in Oakland must have taught a bitter lesson. For one thing, Beasly's `bogus' company had proved a losing investment — no small consideration, for the executive committee had listened very reluctantly when Glass had personally pleaded for its succor. But the lesson stamped indelibly on his mind must have been that the Home Telephone Company could not be kept out of San Francisco except by drastic measures." That this evidence was potent for the purpose of degrading the defendant in the eyes of the jurors will at once be conceded. That it had a tendency to inflame the mind of the jurors against the defendant by showing that in the past he had resorted to the arts of trickery and fraud to prevent honest competition, is quite apparent. That men in the every day affairs of life would have been influenced by *Page 658 such evidence is unquestionably true. But these things go to establish merely the wrong which its admission worked upon the defendant, and not its admissibility. It was not admissible. Clearly, in the everyday affairs of life, if it should be established to the satisfaction of a jury that upon another and distinct occasion a defendant had offered or solicited a bribe, it would have great weight with them in determining whether in the instance charged he had been guilty of the offense. It would establish, at least, that he was the sort of man who would be willing to do this criminal act. Such was the line of reason and argument here employed. Yet such matters are never legal evidence. In discussing precisely such a case, where evidence had been admitted against the defendant charged with bribery, of a former act of like character, the court of appeals of New York says: "The mental ability and disposition of the defendant to commit a crime of this sort, while it might persuade a jury, raises no legal presumption. . . . Yet the inference drawn by the prosecuting officer, and permitted by the court, left it for the jury to say that the desire of Sharp, manifested by the offer of a bribe in one instance, was the same desire which led to the actual giving of a bribe in the other; hence that the two crimes had the same origin. . . . It was put in near the beginning of the trial, and the impression then made must have continued with the jury, and in their minds colored and deepened, if it did not distort, the subsequent evidence. It did indeed cast a dark shadow upon the defendant's character. It not only tended very strongly to prove the defendant guilty; it was absolute proof, but it was of a different crime from that charged. It was offered and received directly on the main issue, and was of great and persuasive force against him. Such evidence is uniformly condemned, as tending to draw away the minds of the jurors from the real point on which their verdict is sought, and to excite prejudice, and to mislead them. It was improperly received, and the exception to its admission well taken." (People v. Sharp,107 N.Y. 427, [1 Am. St. Rep. 851, 14 N.E. 319].)