People v. Lum Yit

Gibson, C. — The respondent in this case was charged with and convicted of the crime of robbery. He moved for and obtained a new trial; from the order granting his motion, the people appeal.

The fourth and sixth of the several grounds upon which the motion was .based were, respectively, that the verdict was contrary to the evidence, and that material evidence had been newly discovered, which the defendant with reasonable diligence could not have found and produced at the trial:

In support of the motion upon the last ground, the respondent introduced the affidavits of six different persons. The court in granting the motion did not specify any particular ground in its order. The argument of the appellant is, that as the instructions given to the jury do not appear in the record, and as no exception was taken to the admission of evidence, nor to any ruling of the court, the motion must necessarily have been granted [131]upon the ground of newly discovered evidence; and as the several affidavits consisted merely of the opinions of the respective affiants as to the innocence of the respondent, they were consequently incompetent, and insufficient to warrant a new trial. We agree with the appellant as to the character and insufficiency of the affidavits, but we must presume, in the absence of anything in the record to negative it, that the court acted regularly, and tested the affidavits by the proper rules of evidence, and having found them insufficient, granted the motion upon some other ground, if any other ground to sustain it can be found in the record. So it is with regard to the charge to the jury; in view of the statement in the bill of exceptions that the court duly charged the jury upon the law of the case, we must presume that the charge was correct. This brings us to the leading question, Can the ruling be sustained upon any of the grounds of the motion? We are of the opinion that it can be, upon the ground that the verdict was contrary to the evidence.

It seems to be well settled that when it appears by the record that a motion for a new trial based upon several grounds was granted by an order which does not disclose any ground for its basis, the ruling will not be disturbed, if it can be sustained upon any of the specified grounds of the motion, unless an abuse of legal discretion is manifest.

In People v. Baker, 39 Cal. 686, a case in which the record was in many respects similar to the one here, the appeal was from an order granting the defendant’s motion for a new trial. Among several specified grounds of the motion was one that the verdict was contrary to the evidence. The bill of exceptions contained all or some portion of the evidence, but none of the minutes of the trial, or the rulings of the court during the trial. The order did not show upon what ground the motion had been granted. In this state of the record the only ground upon which it appeared that the court could have made