People v. Saunders

• Citation: 38 Mich. 218
• Court: Supreme Court of Michigan
• Decision Date: 22 January 1878
• Parties: Harry H. Saunders v. The People

38 Mich. 218

Harry H. Saunders v. The People

Supreme Court of Michigan

January 22, 1878

Submitted January 15, 1878

Error to Recorder's Court of Detroit.

Criminal information for statutory offenses. Saunders was convicted of breaking and entering bye night a court room not connected with a dwelling and feloniously taking therefrom certain recognizances described as contracts in force and public records. Saunders was a lawyer, and it was in evidence that he had asked policeman Webb to leave the door of the police court room unlocked in order that he might get the O'Neil bonds, and that Webb, after consulting with his superior officer, consented, and then lay in wait with others, and at nine o'clock at night caught one Moylan removing the papers from a desk. Webb was asked on cross-examination if he had not once put in some false swearing for Saunders, and the question was ruled out. It being shown that Saunders was arrested in the near neighborhood of the police court room just after Moylan was caught stealing the bonds, a witness named Dunnebacke was questioned with a view to show that Saunders was in the habit of frequenting that neighborhood day and night. His evidence was excluded.

Judgment reversed and a new trial ordered.

George H. Penniman and Fred. A. Baker for plaintiff in error. Judgment should be reversed and defendant discharged, because it appears on the face of the record that he is not guilty of any offense. Reg. v. Johnson, 1 Carr, & Marsh., 218; Allen v. State, 40 Ala. 334; Williams v State, 55 Ga. 391; Eggington's Case, 2 East's P C., 666.

Attorney General Otto Kirchner for the People.

Cooley, J. Graves, J., Marston, J., Campbell, C. J. concurred.

OPINION

Cooley, J.

My brethren are of the opinion that the recorder erred in his rulings in the reception of evidence in two particulars:

First, When he overruled the question put to the witness Webb, on cross-examination, whether he had not had some transactions with the defendant, wherein he had put in some false swearing for him or for the parties; and,

Second, When he excluded the evidence sought from the witness, Dunnebacke, to show that there was nothing unusual or necessarily suspicious in defendant's being where he was seen in company with Moylan.

Webb was an important and necessary witness in the case, and the conviction of defendant must, so far as we can understand from this record, have depended upon the belief of the jury in his evidence to conversations had with the defendant. That evidence was open to unfavorable inferences; and without saying that such inferences should have been drawn, my brethren think the recorder should have permitted very searching cross-examination under the circumstances. If he testified truly, he was apparently conniving at and assisting in the crime charged; and though he may have done this, as he says, not by way of enticing defendant into crime, but only by allowing him the opportunity he sought and requested, yet it placed him in an equivocal position, and the jury ought to have had the benefit of all the light the former dealings of the parties would have thrown upon the transaction. And although a question to the witness which implied rascality in the defendant himself as well as the witness seems extraordinary, yet it may have tested the credibility of the witness as well as any other; and his credibility in the case was quite as much involved as the defendant's guilt.

The purpose of Dunnebacke's evidence was to remove the unfavorable impressions which might be drawn from defendant and Moylan being seen together at a particular spot near the place of the burglary and but a little while before. It is said on behalf of the prosecution that no importance was attached to the place of their meeting, but my brethren think the jury would have...