People v. Denby

Temple, J. Defendant was convicted of an assault with a deadly weapon, and appeals from the judgment and from an order refusing a new trial.

The prosecuting witness testified that he saw defendant soliciting alms from the passengers on the cars. Witness saw him through the windows, but did not hear what he said. He, however, asked witness for some money, when witness arrested him and took him to the depot, as he says, “ quite a length back south from where I arrested him. I started up town with him to go to jail. I got out across the track, and he turned on me and struck me in the face with his fist; I knocked him down; he fell on his knees, and I followed him up till he saw he had enough of it, and then he promised he would go along with me, but when we got near the jail he turned on me with a knife, and made a desperate thrust at me with the knife, which I avoided by jumping away from him, and next by throwing up my hand and striking his arm; then I knocked him down..... At that time he made a desperate effort to get away from me, and said, ‘ I am going to cut you.’ ”

The witness held the defendant by the collar and sleeve. Witness was a special agent for the California [56]Southern Railway Company, and had no other authority. It does' not appear that he had ever seen the defendant before, nor was there any evidence tending to show that defendant had solicited alms at any other time, or that he had been guilty of any other offense.

The defendant was a witness in his own behalf and gave a very different statement of the affair. He says he had the knife in his hand when he was arrested. He was paring his nails. He kept the knife all the way along. -That he thought at first the prosecuting witness was an officer, and on the way discovered that he was not. He then declined to go with him and was knocked down and beaten. He denies any attempt to strike the prosecuting witness with the knife, and says he did not intend to cut him with it.

In his own behalf the witness only testified to the circumstances of the arrest and the alleged assault.

On cross-examination he was asked whether he was in Los Angeles in 1893. The question was objected to as not proper cross-examination, but the objection was overruled, defendant excepting. He was then asked: “Under what name did you go there?”

The question was excepted to as not proper cross-examination, and as incompetent, irrelevant, and immaterial. The objection was overruled and defendant excepted. The defendant then declined to answer, on the ground that the answer would tend to degrade his character. The court nevertheless required him to answer, saying that a person may have a justifiable reason for passing under another name when no reason for so doing appeared. An exception was taken to the ruling, and the defendant answered, “Thomas Swift.”