State v. Ferguson
| Decision Date | 29 November 1898 |
| Citation | 41 A. 769,71 Conn. 227 |
| Court | Connecticut Supreme Court |
| Parties | STATE v. FERGUSON. |
Appeal from superior court, New Haven county; Alberto T. Roraback, Judge.
Andrew J. Ferguson was tried on an information for assault with intent to kill. Jury returned verdict of guilty of simple assault, and judgment was rendered accordingly. Defendant appealed. No error.
The defendant and his wife had been acquainted with Tiedwell, the complainant, for some months before the assault charged. There had been some talk of undue intimacy between Tiedwell and Mrs. Ferguson, but no quarrel between him and the defendant. All were colored. On the day of the assault, about 8 or 9 o'clock in the evening. Tiedwell met Mrs. Ferguson on the street, and they walked together. They were met by the defendant, who had followed his wife, carrying with him a loaded revolver. After some words between the defendant and Tiedwell, the defendant aimed his revolver at Tiedwell's face, and snapped it. The cartridge, however, failed to explode. Then using the revolver as a weapon, he struck Tiedwell upon the face and head. The wife ran away, and the defendant followed her. Tiedwell sought a policeman, and made complaint of the assault. Later in the evening Tiedwell met the defendant, walking with his wife. They became at once involved in a struggle, in which the defendant used his revolver as a weapon, and Tiedwell cut the defendant with a razor. After the cutting, Tiedwell ran, and the defendant fired at him three times. One bullet passed through Tiedwell's cuffs, and another wounded him in the back. The information contained two counts. The first count was based on the first assault, and charged an assault with intent to kill. The second count was based on the second assault, and charged an assault with intent to kill, and an actual wounding with intent to kill. On the first count the jury found the defendant not guilty of an assault with intent to kill, but guilty of a simple assault. On the second count they found the defendant not guilty.
Upon the trial the defendant testified that on the evening of the assault, when he left his house, he took a loaded revolver, and put it in his pocket. He was then asked: This question was objected to by the attorney for the state, and the objection sustained, the defendant duly excepting. Tiedwell was called as a witness for the state on the presentation of its case, and upon cross-examination testified as follows: Later on in the cross-examination the witness testified as follows: The attorney for the state objected to the last question, because it was stated by the attorney for the defendant to be the beginning of a line of cross-examination as to previous relations between the said Tiedwell and Mrs. Ferguson. The attorney for the defendant claimed this question "for the purpose of affecting and showing Tiedwell's bias, his hostility, and his credibility, and for the purpose of showing that the witness had been criminally intimate with Mrs. Ferguson for a period of several months; that they had met on previous occasions by appointment, and that this occasion was one of the appointed times." The defendant's counsel also claimed that proof of criminal relations between the witness and Mrs. Ferguson, to which the question asked was merely preliminary, would tend to explain the defendant's conduct and to corroborate his claim that he did not follow Tiedwell for the purpose of injuring him, and had no malice towards Tiedwell, and that it would show how the encounter began, and the reasons for it. Upon the direct examination of Tiedwell no reference or statement was made by him as to seeing or knowing Mrs. Ferguson prior to the time when he saw her on the street on the night of the assault. The court excluded the question for the reason that such a line of inquiry was not proper cross-examination. The defendant testified that he...
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State v. Hafner
...in the interest of avoiding prejudice to the defendant. See Vogel v. Sylvester, 148 Conn. 666, 676, 174 A.2d 122; State v. Ferguson, 71 Conn. 227, 232, 41 A. 769. There were no facts to support the defendant's claim, however, that the state's attorney had 'deliberately' attempted to introdu......
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State v. Martin
...Vogel v. Sylvester, 148 Conn. 666, 676, 174 A.2d 122 (1961); Shailer v. Bullock, 78 Conn. 65, 70, 61 A. 65 (1905); State v. Ferguson, 71 Conn. 227, 232, 41 A. 769 (1898)." State v. Roma, 199 Conn. 110, 117, 505 A.2d 717 (1986). Our inquiry, then, turns to whether the trial court abused its ......
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State v. Roma
...Vogel v. Sylvester, 148 Conn. 666, 676, 174 A.2d 122 (1961); Shailer v. Bullock, 78 Conn. 65, 70, 61 A. 65 (1905); State v. Ferguson, 71 Conn. 227, 232, 41 A. 769 (1898). DiBartolomeo's "street business" was collateral to the subjects of his direct testimony, and whatever its relevance to h......
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United States v. Shapiro
...vegetables was properly rejected, as the evidence was irrelevant. 1 Wigmore on Evidence, 3d Ed.1940, § 195, pp. 665, 666; State v. Ferguson, 71 Conn. 227, 41 A. 769. And the evidence of the customer D'Avino of the five tie-in sales to him was sufficient to justify the jury's verdict, even a......