State v. Brady
| Decision Date | 14 November 1904 |
| Citation | 59 A. 6,71 N.J.L. 360 |
| Parties | STATE v. BRADY. |
| Court | New Jersey Supreme Court |
Error to Court of Quarter Sessions, Hudson County.
James Brady was convicted of carnal abuse of a girl, and brings error. Affirmed.
Argued June term, 1904, before GUMMERE, C. J., and GARRISON, GARRETSON, and SWAYZE, JJ.
Charles C. Black, for plaintiff in error.
William H. Speer, for the State.
GUMMERE, C. J. Brady was Indicted and convicted for carnal abuse of one Ida Williams, a girl under the age of 16 years. The principal ground alleged for reversal is that there was error in the ruling of the trial judge in excluding a conversation, called for on the cross-examination of Benjamin Murphy, the chief of police of Jersey City, which he had with the Williams girl, and which, presumably, if it had been permitted to have been given, would have been contradictory of the testimony of the girl given upon the witness stand. The conversation, however, was properly excluded for two reasons: First, it was not referred to in the direct examination of the chief of police, and therefore was not a proper cross-examination; second, what was said to the chief by this girl, assuming it to have been contradictory of her testimony on the stand, was competent solely for the purpose of impeaching her credibility, and could only have been put in for that purpose after calling the girl's attention to it, and this was not done. It was not competent to prove it as an admission made by her. The state, not the girl, was the party, and no admission made by her could bind the state. In the prosecution of criminal offenses the state does not assert a private right, or maintain an individual interest, in any such sense as to be affected or bound by hearsay statements of him who has been the victim or object of the criminal act. There is no such legal identity or privity between the person so situated and the state as to render admissions made by him competent evidence in behalf of the party charged with the commission of the crime. Commonwealth v. Dens more, 12 Allen, 538. For the latter reason, the conversation of the Williams girl with Patrolman Barry, and which was overheard by the witness Lancton, was also properly excluded.
It is contended on behalf of the plaintiff in error that the trial judge erred in excluding certain questions asked of one Archibold, a witness produced on the part of the defense, with relation to the reputation of the defendant The witness was the vice president of...
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