People v. Hickman

California Supreme Court May 28, 1896 No. Crim. No. 115Published

Before: Fleet

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Holding. The court affirmed the defendant's conviction for grand larceny, holding that the trial court properly admitted the defendant's statements as non-confession admissions, correctly allowed impeachment of the defendant's character after he testified, and did not err in jury selection procedures.

Issues

Whether the trial court erred in admitting the defendant's statements made to a constable after arrest.
Whether the prosecution was entitled to impeach the defendant's character for truth and integrity after he testified in his own behalf.
Whether the trial court erred in its management of jury impanelment and the special venire.

Disposition. affirmed

Quotations verified verbatim against the opinion

“The statements or declarations of the defendant were in no sense a confession or admission of guilt, and did not require preliminary proof of their voluntary character.”

Synopsis

Criminal Law—Impanelment of Jury—Peremptory Challenges.— When the impanelment of a jury in a criminal case is conducted, as to the time and manner of requiring peremptory challenges, in accordance with the rule established in People v. Scoggins, 37 Cal. 679, exceptions thereto are without merit.

Id.—Disqualification of Juror—Formation of Opinion.—A juror who has formed an opinion based upon hearing the sworn evidence taken on a former trial of the same case, is disqualified.

Id.—Special Venir is—Challenge to Panel — Discretion in Excusing Jurors from Regular Panel.—Where the necessity for the issuance of a special venire arises from the want of a sufficient number of jurors remaining on the regular list to form a panel, the fact that the depletion of the regular panel arose from liberality in allowing excuses to those summoned thereon, cannot affect the regularity of the special venire, or constitute ground for challenge to the panel of jurors specially summoned, the matter of excuses being one of wide discretion, and nothing being made to appear to show its abuse.

Id.—Larceny—Declarations of Defendant to Constable—Preliminary Proof.—Declarations made by a defendant accused of larceny to the constable who arrested him, not amounting to a confession or acknowledgment of guilt,' are admissible in evidence without preliminary proof of their voluntary character, notwithstanding such declarations may, when connected with the facts, tend to establish his guilt.

Id.—Impeachment of Defendant as Witness—General Reputation.— Where a defendant presents himself as a witness in his own behalf, he subjects himself to the same rules óf testing or impeaching his credibility before the jury, as any other witness; and he may be impeached by the testimony of other witnesses that his general reputation in the community for truth, honor, and integrity is had.

Id.—Form of Inquiry as to General Reputation — Waiver of Specific Objection—Appeal.—The fact that in questioning two out of seven impeaching witnesses, the term “ general” was omitted in making the inquiry as to their knowledge of the defendant’s reputation for truth, honesty, alnd integrity, is not material where the whole manner of the inquiry, and the character of the question asked evinced clearly that it was the general reputation of the impeached witness that was being sought; and where the defendant did not object specifically to the form of the question when put, he cannot be heard to urge such objection upon appeal for the first time.

Van Fleet, J. Defendant was convicted of grand larceny, and appeals from the judgment and an order denying him a new trial. He assigns numerous errors.

1. The exceptions .taken in the impanelment of the jury are without merit. The course pursued by the trial judge as to the time and manner of requiring peremptory challenges to be exercised has been the established rule in criminal cases in this state for upwards of twenty-five years. (People v. Scoggins, 37 Cal. 679.)

The challenge for cause interposed by the prosecution to the juror Fulkreth was properly allowed. The challenge was sufficiently specific, and the juror, in having formed an opinion based upon hearing the sworn evidence taken on a former trial of the same case, was clearly disqualified.

Nor was there any error in disallowing the defendant’s challénge to the panel returned under the special venire. The necessity for the issuance of that venire arose from the want of a sufficient number of jurors remaining on the regular list to form a panel. The fact that the depletion of the regular panel may have arisen from too great a liberality on the part of the judge in allowing excuses to those summoned thereon cannot affect the regularity of the special venire, the matter of excuses being one of wide discretion, and nothing being made to appear to show its abuse. The special venire was [85]regularly issued and returned. (Code Civ. Proc., sec. 227.)

2. The constable who arrested the defendant was permitted against the defendant’s objections to testify to certain statements or declarations made by defendant in a conversation between them after the arrest, and this ruling is assigned as error.

The subject of the larceny was a calf, which was taken from the pasture of its owner, near the town of Porter-ville. In the evening before the theft, the owner having been informed that there was a calf tied down in his pasture, got a friend and the constable and drove out to the field. On the way out they met a two-horse wagon being driven rapidly toward town, but the night was too dark to enable them to identify the driver or the team. When they reached the pasture the calf was gone, but evidence of where it had been tied was found, and wagon tracks led from near the place to the premises of the defendant. The next morning a search of defendant’s premises was made by the constable, and in a shed on the place was found a quarter of beef or veal, the hide and the head and entrails on the floor. Upon this discovery, the constable remarked to defendant: “Jerome, this looks kind of suspicious”; and defendant answered: “Well, damned if it don’t.” Subsequently, in talking with defendant on the way to the jail, the constable referred to the incident of meeting the wagon on the evening before, and to quote his language as given in his testimony: “I remarked to him [defendant] that I had a notion to stop that wagon when we met it, or that afterwards I wished that I had stopped it; and he said that it was probably the best thing for me that I didn’t try to stop it; that if I'had attempted to stop it, I probably would not have stopped any more;—something to that effect. I don’t remember exactly the language he used.” Defendant objected to this conversation, and asked that it be stricken out, on the grounds that it was irrelevant, incompetent, and immaterial, and constituted a confession made under duress of arrest

People v. Hickman

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