People v. Hill

California Supreme Court Feb 28, 1899 No. Crim. No. 457Published

Before: Harrison

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Holding. The court held that the trial court committed reversible error by admitting hearsay testimony regarding the location of the altercation and by admitting a physical object into evidence without sufficient identification or connection to the defendant.

Issues

Whether the trial court erred in admitting hearsay testimony from a witness regarding the location of the crime scene as pointed out by another person.
Whether the trial court erred in admitting a physical object (a stick) into evidence without sufficient identification or connection to the defendant.
Whether the trial court erred in admitting evidence of an experimental test regarding fence wire deformation without establishing similar conditions.

Disposition. reversed and remanded

Quotations verified verbatim against the opinion

“The testimony thus given by Graham was clearly hearsay, and the court erred in admitting it.”

“The court also erred in permitting the club which McClure found in the corral to be received in evidence and exhibited to the jury.”

“There was no evidence identifying the stick as the one with which the defendant struck the deceased, or in any way connecting the defendant with it.”

Synopsis

Criminal Law—Homicide—Evidence—Hearsay.—Upon the trial of a defendant accused of murder, where the wife of the deceased testified that she had pointed out the place of the homicide to another person, on a day specified, the testimony of such other person that a particular place had heen pointed out to him by her as the place where her husband lay upon the ground when killed, which place was located by the witness, according to her statement then made, is hearsay, and inadmissible.

Id.—Club not Identified.—It is error to admit in evidence and to exhibit to the jury a club found in the vicinity where the homicide was committed, shortly after the killing, where there is no evidence to identify it as the one with which the defendant struck the deceased.

Id.—Depression in Wire Fence—Experiment by Witness—Error without Prejudice.—A witness who has testified that eight days after the homicide he noticed a depression in a wire fence which the defendant had crossed at the time of the homicide, cannot properly testify to an experiment made by himself in putting his weight on another top wire between different posts producing a similar depression, it not appearing that the conditions of the experiment were the same as those which caused the other depression; but the admission of such evidence is not prejudicial error, it being immaterial in what manner the defendant crossed the fence for the purpose of determining the character of the affray.

HARRISON, J. The appellant was convicted of murder in the second degree in killing Theodore R. Parvin, and has appealed from the judgment thereon. The circumstances attending the homicide are as follows: The appellant had leased to Parvin certain premises known as the “Hill Place,” and had also [572]sold him certain personal property for use in the cultivation of the land, upon which he had taken a chattel mortgage aa security for the payment therefor. Becoming dissatisfied with the manner in which Parvin was cultivating the land, he was anxious to buy him off, and for that purpose went to the place in company with bis father on the 8th of February, 1898. Very soon after his arrival he approached the deceased, who was working within a corral upon a fence at the westerly side thereof, and while upon the outer side of the corral, and talking with the deceased respecting the purchase, hot words ensued between them, followed by a mutual assault which resulted in the defendant striking Parvin across the head with a stick, from the effects of which he died the same night.

The only person who witnessed the altercation was the father of the defendant, and at the trial he testified that he was at work about twenty or thirty feet away from where they were standing, while on opposite sides of the fence, and having his attention drawn to them by hearing Parvin speak in a loud tone of voice, saw him approach the defendant with uplifted hands, having a saw in one and a hammer in the other, and strike at him. Thereupon the defendant stooped down and picked up a stick from the ground and got over the fence into the corral. Parvin still had the saw and hammer uplifted in his hands, and, while striking at the defendant with the hammer, the defendant struck him across the head with the stick which he had picked up, which caused Parvin to fall to the ground, from which he almost immediately got up and walked over to the bam, against which he rested for a few minutes, and then went to another part of the corral and sat down. He also testified that the point in the corral at which Parvin was standing when the defendant struck him was about three feet east of the west fence of the corral and about twenty-five feet from the barn; that he fell toward the west with his head about a foot from the fence. Mrs. Parvin, the wife of the deceased, was in the dwelling-house and saw the defendant and her husband while they were in conversation upon opposite sides of the fence, but did not see the defendant strike her husband. She testified that very soon after she had seen them thus talking she was attracted by the loud voice of her husband, and went out upon the porch and saw her husband

People v. Hill

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