Pugh v. Commonwealth

• Decision Date: 11 January 1927
• Citation: 217 Ky. 511
• Parties: Pugh v. Commonwealth.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court — District of Kentucky

Page 511

217 Ky. 511

Pugh v. Commonwealth.

Court of Appeals of Kentucky.

Decided January 11, 1927.

1. Perjury — Testimony That Accused Was Seen Shooting on Highway During 12-month Period Before Trial Held Insufficient to Prove Denial of Shooting at Trial Was False Swearing. — That accused, in prosecution for shooting on public highway, swore falsely that he did not shoot thereon, held not sufficiently shown in prosecution for false swearing by testimony of witnesses that they had seen accused shoot on public highway within 12 months before trial therefor.

2. Criminal Law — Testimony of Commonwealth's Attorney That Accused Had Offered Bribe Held Improper Rebuttal. — Testimony of Commonwealth's attorney, in prosecution for false swearing, that accused had offered to bribe him, held improperly admitted as rebuttal being properly part of evidence in chief.

3. Criminal Law — In Presecution for Falsely Denying Shooting on Highway, Witnesses Guilty of Shooting on Highway Were Not Accomplices Requiring Corroboration. — Witnesses, in prosecution for falsely denying shooting on highway, though guilty of shooting on public highway at same time that accused was charged therewith, were not accomplices requiring corroboration.

Appeal from Pike Circuit Court.

DAUGHERTY & BARRETT, for appellant.

FRANK E. DAUGHERTY, Attorney General, and G.D. LITSEY, Asistant Attorney General, for appellee.

OPINION OF THE COURT BY JUDGE LOGAN.

Reversing.

The appellant, Tom Pugh, was charged in an indictment returned by the Pike county grand jury with the crime of false swearing and he was convicted by the petit jury and his punishment fixed at one year in the state penitentiary.

The indictment charges appellant with having committed the offense on the 8th day of October, 1924, when he gave evidence in a case then pending in the Pike circuit court, wherein he was on trial for the offense of shooting on a public highway. The indictment aptly charges that on the trial of that case the appellant herein, after having been duly sworn, testified that he did not shoot on the public highway and that it was Theodore Anderson who shot on the public highway, when in truth and in fact it was the appellant who shot at the time and the statement that he did not shoot on the public highway at the time was false and known by him to be false at the time he so testified.

Two witnesses were introduced by the commonwealth to sustain the charge in the indictment. Each of these witnesses was asked substantially the same questions by the attorney for the commonwealth and they made substantially the same answers. There was no effort made to confine the evidence of these witnesses to the particular occasion for which the appellant was tried on the charge of...