People v. Fong Ching

McFarland, J. The defendant was convicted of the crime of offering to give a bribe to a witness, under section 137 of the Penal Code. He appeals from the judgment, and from an order denying a new trial.

[171]There are thirty-nine assignments of error; and as many of them are about rulings concerning the admissibility of evidence, we have been compelled to examine carefully the whole transcript, which consists of four large books of manuscript. And, when read, it is found to consist, to a great extent, of lengthy, wearisome, and apparently pointless examinations and cross-examinations of witnesses and other immaterial and worthless matter, utterly useless in pointing the exceptions taken. Under our view of the case, however, there is no need to notice much of this unnecessary matter.

It appears that, on July 28, 1886, J. B. Martin, who was a policeman of the city of San Francisco, arrested one Lee Chuck for the alleged murder of one Yen Yuen, who was on that day shot and killed on a public street of that city. And the charge against the defendant herein, Fong Ching (or Pete), upon which he was convicted, is, that he offered said policeman, Martin, a bribe of four hundred dollars to testify falsely upon the examination of said Lee Chuck for said alleged murder; “ that he [Martin] had-seen some persons attack said Lee Chuck with pistols, and that he [Lee Chuck] had shot in amongst them.” On the trial of the case at bar, Martin testified, in substance, that soon after the arrest of Lee Chuck, the defendant herein (Pete) met him (Martin), and asked him “to be light” on Lee Chuck, and that he (Martin) gave some evasive answer, saying, “ I will see,” or something like that; that during the next day or two he had several private interviews with the defendant (another policeman, named Love, being present part of the time), at which defendant offered to give various sums of money to Martin if the latter would agree to swear falsely, as above stated; that he (Martin) pretended to listen favorably to defendant’s proposals, for the purpose of leading him on, so that he might have sufficient evidence of the crime; that he demanded higher sums of money than defendant would offer; [172]that he never received or took any money at all from defendant; and that finally defendant offered him four hundred dollars for the proposed false testimony. On the other hand, defendant testified that Martin made the first proposal about money; that defendant never gave or offered to give any money to Martin to induce the latter to swear falsely; that Martin represented that he could be of great service to Lee Chuck; that defendant was a warm friend of Lee Chuck, and feared that a certain strong Chinese society, which was very hostile to Lee Chuck, would use money to induce Martin to testify falsely against him, and that at the solicitation of Martin he (defendant) gave Martin various sums of money, amounting in all to four hundred dollars, for his friendship, and to induce him to testify merely to the truth, and not to testify falsely against Lee Chuck. It is evident that the decision of the case turned mainly upon the amount of credence which the jury should give to either one of these conflicting stories. (It appears incidentally in the transcript that two former juries failed to agree.) Bearing upon this state of the testimony, the court below, of its own motion, gave a certain charge to the jury; and it is contended that the latter part of said charge (given below in Italics) was an unauthorized intrusion into the province of the jury. The charge is as follows: —