State v. Taylor
| Decision Date | 30 October 1950 |
| Docket Number | No. A--21,A--21 |
| Citation | 76 A.2d 14,5 N.J. 474 |
| Parties | STATE v. TAYLOR et al. |
| Court | New Jersey Supreme Court |
Albert S. Gross, Hackensack, argued the cause for appellant.
Prosecutor Walter G. Winne, Hackensack, argued the cause for respondent.
The opinion of the court was delivered by
The defendant, Taylor, appeals from a judgment of conviction entered in the Bergen County Court on an indictment charging him with subornation of perjury in that, by means of threat to commit violent injury on one Charles Patti, Taylor did suborn the said Patti to commit perjury in the Bergen County Court on March 28, 1950 in a prosecution of Taylor for burglary by persuading Patti to testify that Taylor did not participate with Patti in the burglary of the Universal Food Market in Englewood on February 9, 1949. This appeal was taken to the Superior Court, Appellate Division, and certified here on our own motion.
The Universal Food Market is a large supermarket employing some fifteen people. On February 9 it was broken into, the safe was rifled and money was taken therefrom. When Taylor was tried for this burglary, Patti testified unequivocally Taylor did not participate with him in that enterprise, resulting in Taylor's acquittal.
It was alleged, and there was proof, that the testimony so given was false and that Patti had been induced to commit perjury by the constant and repeated threats of physical violence by Taylor.
The evidence offered by the State is not complicated or long and a summary of it clarifies the legal issues raised.
The assistant manager of the market testified that two days before the burglary Taylor was on the premises and he had a conversation with him while standing near the safe which was subsequently burglarized. Identification of Taylor was made at the New York police headquarters.
Patti, as a State's witness, said Taylor was part owner of certain premises in Brooklyn where Patti rented an automobile mechanic's repair shop; thus he became acquainted with Taylor; that on the afternoon of February 9, Taylor, equipped with a screw driver, a hammer and a punch, induced Patti to drive him from the repair shop in Brooklyn to Englewood, New Jersey, where they parked in the vicinity of the market in question. Until their arrival at Englewood, Patti did not know their destination or purpose excepting that it was unlawful. At night and after the store had closed, Patti, by means of the screw driver, broke the lock of the steel-plated back door of the premises and thereafter Taylor alone entered the market and broke into the safe. Patti received from Taylor ninety odd dollars in cash as his share of the burglary.
Later, on February 25, 1949, Patti was apprehended in Brooklyn by the New York police authorities and ultimately, according to his version, after the application of considerable physical force, made a statement implicating Taylor in certain burglaries which were committed in the State of New Jersey. Following this, he made a statement to a New Brunswick lawyer recanting the accusation so made as against Taylor. Patti was later convicted in Monmouth and Middlesex Counties for the burglaries perpetrated there for which he had been indicted jointly with Taylor as a result of the statement made to the New York police.
After the trial in Bergen County on March 28, 1950 in which he exonerated Taylor from any participation, and while still in custody of the Bergen authorities, Patti confessed his perjury. While there, he was visited by Taylor on two occasions and on the latter visit he told Taylor of his change of attitude.
Patti's wife corroborated the relationship between the two families and testified as to certain payments made by her to Taylor through her husband. She was present on April 4, 1950, saw the defendant, Taylor, and heard him talk to her husband in the visitors' booth in the jail, although she could not relate the substance or nature of the conversation.
Michael Iacono, another State's witness, who had been friendly with Patti, accompanied Taylor and Mrs. Patti to the Bergen County Jail on April 4, where he spoke with Patti in the visitors' booth. Taylor did not talk to Patti while he was present but, when he left, Taylor was talking to the prison guard and came out of the building about fifteen minutes later.
Millington and Graber, county detectives, were secreted in the sheriff's office at the Bergen County Jail on the 4th of April, saw Iacono, Rose Patti and Murray Taylor enter the visitors' booth and thereafter, by means of a wire apparatus and microphone, heard a conversation between the parties and particularly between Taylor and Patti in which Patti, amongst other things, said:
Robinson, a court stenographer, was present at the same time and told of transcribing the conversation which he heard over the wire apparatus. He, of couse, could not identify the voices heard.
The defense was a categorical denial of the accusation made, consisting principally of the defendant's testimony as supplemented by proof of his employment since 1946.
It is asserted error was committed in permitting the cross examination of the defendant, over objection, with respect to certain indictments and the circumstances of a former arrest; that the testimony purporting to be the conversation between the four unidentified persons in the County Jail constituted hearsay and was erroneously admitted; and that there was no legal evidence constituting corroboration of the alleged perjury and therefore the verdict was contrary to the weight of the evidence.
Taylor on direct examination testified he hea been convicted in 1935 in Pennsylvania for the crime of conspiracy and was also convicted in 1941 in New Jersey for the crime of conspiracy; that since his last conviction he had not been arrested by or been in trouble with the police.
The prosecutor then, over objection, on cross examination was permitted to develop that he had been indicted for burglary in Middlesex County and likewise in Monmouth. He was also permitted to show that the 1941 conviction admitted by Taylor was connected with the Lindbergh case, State v. Hauptmann, 115 N.J.L. 412, 180 A. 809, and...
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