People v. Fox
| Decision Date | 03 June 1890 |
| Citation | 121 N.Y. 449,24 N.E. 923 |
| Parties | PEOPLE v. FOX. |
| Court | New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Appeal from supreme court, general term, third department.
Wm. Green, Dist. Atty., for the People.
Andrew J. Nellis, for respondent.
The defendant was convicted in the court of sessions of Fulton county of the crime of robbery in the first degree, charged to have been committed upon the person of one Plank by entering his house in the night-time, binding him, and taking certain money it is claimed he had in his possession. Plank was the principal, if not the only, witness at the trial who testified in regard to the facts and circumstances constituting the offense, and who attempted to identify the defendant as one of the persons present on the occasion, and actively participating in the robbery. He testified that there were four other persons present with him, but did not attempt to identify them by any direct or positive testimony. His version of the transaction tending to establish the commission of a crime, and to identify the defendant as one of the persons engaged in it, is not free from contradictions, and contains some elements of improbability. While the credibility of his testimony was entirely for the jury, its salient features can properly be kept in view when considering the competency and probable effect with the jury of certain confessions of guilt claimed to have been made by the defendant, and which were given in evidence against him, as well as evidence offered in his behalf tending to explain or entirely destroy these alleged confessions. The defendant at the time of his arrest was found in a saloon at night, and taken to the lock-up in a state of intoxication from which he had not recovered, when about 2 o'clock in the morning he was aroused from sleep by a justice of the peace, who presented to him a paper just prepared by the justice and the district attorney, which was read to the defendant, signed by his mark, and sworn to before the justice. The paper was given in evidence at the trial by the prosecution, and in it the defendant states, in the technical language of an indictment, that he and four other persons named therein committed the robbery. The testimony of Plank was in this way corroborated, not only as to the commission of a crime, but as to the identity of the defendant as one of its perpetrators in concert with the four other persons named in the confession. The defendant offered to prove by three of the persons named in the paper and by other witnesses that on the night when the robbery was alleged to have taken place they were not and could not have been at Plank's house, or in the vicinity, but were in fact at another place. Like proof was offered to show that the fourth person named in the paper as the defendant's accomplice could not possibly have been present or participating in the commission of the offense. This testimony was objected to by the district attorney on the ground that, though it might prove that the four persons named in the paper as defendant's accomplices, who were not on trial, did not participate in the crime, yet it could not affect the admission of the defendant that he was...
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...proceedings at the inquest for the purpose of determining whether the defendant had testified as a party or as a witness. People v. Fox, 121 N. Y. 449, 24 N. E. 923. The ground of defendant's complaint in this behalf upon this appeal is that he was not given the opportunity to show that he ......
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...made, it is the duty of the judge, if requested, to hear his evidence upon the question. It is error to refuse so to do. People v. Fox, 121 N. Y. 449, 453,24 N. E. 923. When, however, upon this preliminary examination, an issue of fact is raised by conflicting testimony, the confession may ......
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