People v. Murphy

• Decision Date: 11 October 1892
• Citation: People v. Murphy, 135 N.Y. 450, 32 N.E. 138 (N.Y. 1892)
• Parties: PEOPLE v. MURPHY.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

135 N.Y. 450

32 N.E. 138

PEOPLE

v.MURPHY.

Court of Appeals of New York.

Oct. 11, 1892.

Appeal from supreme court, general term, fifth department.

Indictment of Michael Murphy for arson. Judgment of conviction which was affirmed by the general term. 17 N. Y. Supp. 427. Defendant appeals. Affirmed.

Richard Crowley, for appellant.

P. F. King, Dist. Atty., for the People.

MAYNARD, J.

The defendant was convicted of the crime of arson in the third degree. The evidence was purely circumstantial, as it ordinarily is in the proof of this class of crimes. It is unnecessary to review it in detail, but it was sufficient, we think, if believed by the jury, to connect the defendant with the commission of the offense charged, and to support their conclusion that he was the perpetrator of it. On the trial two anonymous letters were introduced in evidence, and, undoubtedly, had an important bearing in securing defendant's conviction. One was written to a woman in the employ of the owner of the burned building, threatening to burn her house in case she continued in his employment, and requesting her to tell the owner that he would burn his property, too, if he did not discharge a servant girl with whom the defendant had a standing quarrel. The other letter was written four days after the fire, and was addressed to the owner of the building, and contained an implied threat of further harm, unless he did as the writer requested, which, it was argued, had reference to the request in the former letter for the discharge of the servant girl. The prosecution resorted to the method authorized by chapter 36 of the Laws of 1880, in order to prove that these letters were written by the defendant. A number of specimens of his genuine handwriting were put in evidence, and six expert witnesses were called, all of whom, after a comparison of the letters with the specimens shown to have been genuine, testified, with different degrees of positiveness, that the letters and the specimens were all written by the same hand. It is now objected that this mode of proof of defendant's handwritng was unauthorized; that it was not a case of a disputed writing, within the provisions of the act of 1880; that the statute was only intended to change the rules of evidence formerly in force, where the authenticity of the paper is directly the subject-matter of the issue to be tried, as in the case of the denial of the execution of a note, or a deed, or a will, or any other instrument relied upon as the foundation of an action or defense. It is insisted that all of the reported cases are of this character, and the language of Chief Judge RUGER, in Peck v. Callaghan, 95 N. Y. 75, is quoted, where it is said: ‘The disputed writing referred to in the statute relates only to the instrument which is the subject of controversy in the action, and the specimens of handwriting admissible thereunder are those of the person purporting to have executed the instrument in controversy.’

Whatever intrinsic merit there may be in this contention, we do not think it is available to the defendant upon this appeal. No such objection appears in the record. The genuine specimens were received in evidence, and the expert witnesses called and permitted to make the comparison and give their opinion upon the subject, without any intimation from the defendant that such proof was inadmissible. The defendant himself even called two expert witnesses, and had the benefit of an opinion from them, after a comparison of the letters with the genuine specimens, to the effect that at least one of the letters was not written by the same person as the concededly genuine exhibits. When the letters were offered in evidence there was no objection to their reception, on the ground that the proof of their genuineness was insufficient, but they were objected to solely on the ground that the letters themselves were incompetent and improper as evidence,—an objection which pertains to the subject-matter of the proof offered, and not to the method of its presentation, or to any of the preliminary steps to be observed in its introduction. If the defendant had seasonably objected to the evidence of comparison of handwriting, and the objection had been sustained, the prosecution might have been able to have furnished sufficient common-law proof of the genuineness of the letters to have authorized their admission as evidence; for one of the expert witnesses was a bank officer, who...