People v. Morrigan
| Decision Date | 27 January 1874 |
| Citation | 29 Mich. 4 |
| Court | Michigan Supreme Court |
| Parties | The People v. James Morrigan and another |
Heard January 9, 1874
Exceptions fro the Recorder's Court of Detroit.
Information for larceny. Conviction set aside and new trial granted.
Conviction set aside, and a new trial granted.
Byron D. Ball, Attorney General, for the People.
S Larned and F. A. Baker, for the respondents.
Christiancy, J., did not sit in this case.
Defendants were convicted of larceny from the person of one John L. Merrill, whose story was that he was hustled in the cars by certain persons including the defendants, and had his coat cut open near the breast pocket, and his pocket-book taken away, with one thousand one hundred dollars in bills, consisting of three fifty-dollar bills, fifteen twenty-dollar bills, ten or twelve ten-dollar bills, and the remainder in five-dollar bills. Several exceptions were taken at the trial, which are now urged against the conviction.
A ten-dollar bill found on defendant Myers was recognized by Merrill on the trial, from certain peculiarities. He was allowed, under exception, to state that he had described this note to one of the detectives at the police station previously, and it is now urged that this is an attempt to corroborate him by a repetition of his own statements, and inadmissible. We do not think this is open to that objection. The conduct of a party complaining of a crime, is often of considerable importance in determining his honesty, and we think such a statement, connected with the circumstances under which it was made, is rather to be regarded as a fact belonging to res gestoe than as a mere hearsay statement or declaration. It was open to contradiction; and while such a communication may undoubtedly be used to charge innocent persons who are known to possess articles described, yet it is after all such information as is necessary to enable the police to get upon the track of offenders, and cannot be regarded as gratuitous.
An objection was also made that the prosecuting attorney should not have been allowed to pick up the note by itself and show it to the witness for identification; but that he should have been required to select it himself from the pile of bills shown him.
It appears from the bill of exceptions that the witness had previously recognized the bill without objection. The objection was therefore too late, and had lost any force it might have had originally. We are not prepared to lay it down as a rule of law that such a method of identification is illegal. Courts have always exercised considerable discretion in regard to leading questions. There can be no doubt that it is very unfair to a prisoner to omit any precautions which will aid in preventing dishonesty in a prosecuting witness, but the circumstances of each case must have force in determining this. In the present case, after the bill had been recognized already, there does not appear to have been any ground of complaint.
An objection was made and overruled, to the rejection by the court of questions put to the witness, tending to elicit the fact that he was indebted considerably and straitened, and that his stock of goods was small, and also to show that he had made statements on the preliminary examination of the prisoners, which made out his inventory to have been very much larger than he knew it to have been in fact.
We were at first inclined to consider the exclusion as not erroneous. But upon further consideration we think the questions should have been allowed. Upon...
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...jury can get along without it; and is only admitted from necessity, and then only when it is likely to be of some value. [People v. Morrigan, 29 Mich. 4, 8 (1874).] The test applied in Morrigan was further defined by this Court in People v. Zimmerman, 385 Mich. 417, 427, 189 N.W.2d 259 (197......
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