People v. Chin Sing
| Decision Date | 04 May 1926 |
| Citation | 152 N.E. 248,242 N.Y. 419 |
| Parties | PEOPLE v. CHIN SING. |
| Court | New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Chin Sing was convicted of murder in the first degree, and he appeals.
Reversed, and new trial ordered.
Appeal from Queens County Court.
Harry Kopp and Samuel Null, both of New York City, for appellant.
Richard S. Newcombe, Dist. Atty., of New York City (Thomas F. Thornton, of New York City, of counsel), for respondent.
The defendant, a Chinaman, has been convicted of murder in the first degree because, as found by the jury, he killed his employer, another Chinaman, at the village of Corona, Long Island, early in the morning of October 14, 1924. It has been the theory of the people that he was hired to commit this murder by a Chinese Tong which was then engaged in warfare with another Tong to which the deceased belonged.
[1] We do not deem it necessary to give a general summary of the people's evidence. We have reached the conclusion that it was sufficient to sustain the verdict of the jury, and that, therefore, the latter should not be set aside as against the weight of evidence. Nevertheless, as an introduction to the consideration of the error which in our opinion requires a reversal of the judgment, it is to be borne in mind that the evidence against defendant is circumstantial, and that there has been enough doubt about its cogency so that on the first trial of defendant the jury disagreed, and on the present trial reached a verdict of conviction only after several hours of consideration. These circumstances are not to be overlooked in deciding whether an undoubted error in the conduct of the trial is of sufficient importance to require a new trial. We shall simply summarize so much of the evidence as presents the error to which we have referred.
At a comparatively early hour in the morning after the night when the murder is claimed to have been committed, the defendant appeared on the streets of Yonkers, which was a distance of two or three hours of travel from the place where the murder was ocmmitted. There was something about his appearance which attracted the attention of a police officer, and he was placed under observation and interrogation. Concededly he is not able to speak the English language, but the officer understoodhim to say something about having been employed in a laundry not far away, and investigation of this supposed information disclosed that it was false. Subsequently the police called in two Chinamen, and through them as interpreters proceeded to interrogate defendant concerning his former whereabouts and the reasons for his presence in Yonkers. Defendant had nothing to do with the selection of these men, nor did he even know, so far as the record shows, that what he had said to them was to be communicated to the police or to others. On the trial, witnesses were allowed to trstify that the interpreters said that the defendant gave various answers to their questions relative to his former residence or employment and accounting for his presence in Yonkers which were false, and amongst the latter answers was one to the effect that he had come to Yonkers to escape from a Chinese Tong war. The Chinamen who made this purported interpretation of their questions and defendant's answers were not called to testify to the correctness of their interpretation, and the evidence of third parties, without such authentication, was admitted over proper objections and exceptions that the evidence was hearsay and inadmissible.
[2] We think that it was so clearly so as not to permit any serious discussion of the question. The people have cited various authorities which are claimed to sustain the admission of this evidence, but they entirely fail so to do. Of course the evidence was hearsay (People v. Lewis, 238 N. Y. 1, 143 N. E. 771), and, with two possible exceptions the only cases cited by the people to sustain the admission of such evidence are cases where the interpreter had been selected by common consent of the parties endeavoring to converse or by the party against whom the statements of the interpreter were offered in evidence, and in such cases it was naturally held that the party against whom the statements were offered in evidence had made the interpreter his agent, and therefore within the ordinary rules of principal and agent was bound by his statements which could be proved by a third party. As has been pointed out, that is not at all this case. Commonwealth v. Vose, 157 Mass. 393, 32 N. E. 355,17 L. R. A. 813;Meacham v. State, 45 Fla. 71, 33 So. 983,110 Am. St. Rep. 61;Nadau v. White River...
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