State v. Halsey.
| Decision Date | 02 August 1929 |
| Docket Number | No. 3414.,3414. |
| Citation | 279 P. 945,34 N.M. 223 |
| Parties | STATEv.HALSEY. |
| Court | New Mexico Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Syllabus by the Court.
Where accused by her own testimony shows that she corresponded with a codefendant about a matter mentioned in his letters to her found in a bureau in her home after the homicide, such letters are admissible against her as tending to show the relations existing between them, and are not “res inter alios acta.”
Where accused has been denied the right to fully cross-examine a hostile witness in a former trial, for which error the case was reversed, and the state, after showing the absence of the witness, attempts to introduce transcript of his former testimony at the second trial, it was error to admit the same over defendant's objections.
Article 2, § 14, Constitution of New Mexico, giving to accused the right to be confronted with the witnesses against him, prohibits the introduction in evidence against one accused of homicide of testimony of an absent witness given at former trial wherein the full right to cross-examine was erroneously denied.
Appeal from District Court, Curry County; Hatch, Judge.
Katherine Halsey was convicted of murder, and she appeals. Reversed, and a new trial awarded.
Article 2, § 14, Constitution of New Mexico, giving to accused the right to be confronted with the witnesses against him, prohibits the introduction in evidence against one accused of homicide of testimony of an absent witness given at former trial wherein the full right to cross-examine was erroneously denied.
O. O. Askren, of Roswell, Carl H. Gilbert, of Santa Fé, and H. B. Hamilton, of El Paso, Tex., for appellant.
M. A. Otero, Jr., Atty. Gen., and E. C. Warfel, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.
In an indictment charging one Archer with the murder of Halsey, appellant and one Foster were included as accessories before the fact. All three were convicted and sentenced to be hanged. We affirmed the case as to Archer, reversed for resentence as to Foster, and reversed and remanded for a new trial as to appellant, Mrs. Halsey, the widow of the murdered man. State v. Archer et al., 32 N. M. 326, 255 P. 396. From a second conviction, after a change of venue to Curry county, this appeal follows.
[1] 1. First appellant claims that error was committed by permitting the state to introduce in evidence, over her objection, three certain letters, bearing date November 12 and 14 and December 16, 1923, respectively, written by Foster to appellant and found in a bureau drawer in her home after the murder. She claims that the state did not show that she either invited these letters, acquiesced in them, knew of their existence, or participated in correspondence of which they were part. She invokes the well-known rule of “res inter alios acta,” and says that these letters were not competent for any purpose against her. If the matter rested there, her contention might be upheld, but, when she took the stand in her own defense, she testified to certain facts which supplied the missing and connecting link, and made these letters competent for the sole purpose for which they were admitted; i. e., not to prove conspiracy, but to show the state of feeling existing between Foster and her, as tending to show motive. Any error which may have been made up to the time the state closed its case was cured by defendant's own testimony.
[2][3] 2. Next appellant claims that prejudicial error was committed by the trial court in allowing the state to read in evidence against her the entire testimony of Zack Teel given on the former trial, after proving that Teel was absent and could not be found by diligent effort on the part of the state. She invokes article 2, § 14, of the Constitution of this State, which provides: “In all criminal prosecutions the accused shall have the right * * * to be confronted with the witnesses against him. * * *” Appellant admits the rule to be that the testimony of a deceased or absent witness, given at a former trial, may be used in evidence in a subsequent trial,...
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