People v. Ching Hing Chang

Thornton, J. Information accusing defendants of robbery. The newly discovered evidence is of a character that might have been discovered by reasonable diligence in time to have produced it at the triaL It need [391]not therefore be further considered. In the progress of the trial several exceptions were reserved to the rulings of the court, which it will be necessary to pass on.

1. Chin Len, the complainant, was called as a witness, and testified that he had collected the money, of which he testified he was robbed, from a relative of his named Kee, on Pacific Street, where Kee kept a wash-house; and that at the time of the trial this relative had gone to China. The money was collected of Kee on the day of the robbery, with whom he (the witness) had deposited it. In the course of the cross-examination, the defendant’s counsel (Mr. Smith) asked the witness where his relative procured the money to pay him, when there occurred what follows: “ The Court: That is proper, if you know where. Mr. Smith: Do you know where your relative procured the money to pay you? Mr. Coffey: I object to the question as irrelevant, immaterial, and incompetent. Witness: I think he went to his safe or trunk. Mr. Smith: Did he,— safe or trunk? The Court: It is immaterial. Mr. Smith: The object is to show the improbability of his leaving the money there on deposit unless there was some safe place in the wash-house for it,—that is the object of the testimony.” The prosecuting officer (Coffey) objected as before, and the court sustained the objection.

So far as relates to the issue of robbery which took place, according to the testimony, at 836 Washington Street, it was entirely immaterial whether the money was taken by Kee when he paid it to witness from a safe or trunk: If counsel desired to show that a trunk or safe was not a safe place of deposit, the inquiry for that purpose would naturally turn on the character of the safe or trunk,—what kind of safe or what kind of trunk it was of which he spoke,—and what were the means of fastening the safe or trunk referred to, so as to keep outsiders from getting into it. But no question of this kind was asked. The only question, as indicated by the curt [392]language used, was whether the money was taken from a safe or trunk when handed by Kee to the witness. This had no reference to the fact whether the safe or trunk was a safe place of deposit. If the object of counsel was to show such a fact, he should have asked a question appropriate to the purpose. The court might well have concluded from the statement of counsel that if his object was to show that the safe or trunk was not a safe place to deposit money, that the answer to the question put had no tendency to show it. It is clear that if the witness had answered that the money was taken from a safe, and not from a trunk, this would have shown nothing as to its being a place where money could have been safely deposited. The same would be true if he had answered that the money was taken from a trunk, and not from a safe. An apposite question might have been put for the object declared by counsel, and as none was put, we cannot see that the court erred in its ruling. The court ruled correctly that the question put related to a matter immaterial to any definite issue in the cause.