People v. Crespi

Criminal Law—Criminal Libel—Preliminary Examination—Jurisdiction of Police Court and Judges.—The police court of the city and county of San Francisco, and police judges sitting as magistrates, have jurisdiction to hold a preliminary examination of a defendant charged with the offense of criminal libel, although the police court has no jurisdiction to try that offense.

Id.—Magistrates—Source of Authority—Jurisdiction.—Magistrates, as defined and enumerated in the Penal Code, including police judges in towns and cities, derive their powers and jurisdiction from the constitution, operating with the acts of the legislature upon the subject; and judges, when sitting as magistrates, have the jurisdiction and powers conferred by law upon magistrates, and not those which pertain to their respective judicial offices.

Id.—Examination of Complaining Witness by Defendant—Conspiracy —Impeachment.—Where part of the libelous matter charged was that the complaining witness, who was a newspaper editor and proprietor, was paid by a dishonest and dishonorable cabal or confederation of Italians, known as “ the Camorra,” to libel and vilify certain people, and such complaining witness was called to the stand as a witness for the defendant, and asked, with specifications of time, place, and persons present, if he had not stated that he had instituted the proseeutiou of the defendant at the instance of others, to which he answered that he had not, the defendant cannot be permitted to impeach his own witness by proof that he had made such statement.

Id.—Dishonest Character of Camorra—Conspiring Druggists—Rebutting Evidence—Testimony of Physician.—Where, for the purpose of showing the dishonest character of the camorra, with which the complaining witness was stated to have conspired, evidence was introduced to show the improper making of money by druggists of the city who were connected with the camorra, and with a benevolent society controlled by it, through the furnishing of inferior medicines, it is proper rebutting evidence to show by a practicing physician of the same city, that he knew nothing of the use of inferior medicines, and that in his practice no complaints had been made to him thereof, and it is no objection that he was not connected with the benevolent society, or with either of the parties to the controversy, or that his evidence was of slight importance, the value or weight of it being for the jury alone.

Id.—Family of Complaining Witness—Harmless Ruling.—The admission of testimony of the prosecuting witness that he was a married man, and the father of a family, it seems might be allowed, as affecting his credibility before the jury, and, in any event, could have done defendant no harm.

Id.—Instruction—Object of Law Punishing Libel—Prevention of Breach of Peace.—An instruction to the effect that a public prosecution for libel is conducted for public purposes; that the publication of a libel has a tendency to provoke a breach of the public peace, which the law is solicitous to maintain and preserve; that persons feeling themselves injured by such publications are incited, in many instances, to seek satisfaction by personal violence inflicted upon the supposed libeler; and that it is the precautionary policy of the law, in the interest of the preservation of the peace of society, to discourage such violent remedies involving a breach of the peace, and the law has therefore provided for the punishment of the libeler, as being one who wantonly puts the public peace at hazard by printing and publishing untrue and malicious attacks on private character—is a clear and correct exposition of the law and the cause of its existence.