State v. Wright

• Decision Date: 01 May 1888
• Docket Number: 10,173
• Citation: 4 So. 486,40 La.Ann. 589
• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE OF LOUISIANA v. GEORGE C. WRIGHT

4 So. 486

40 La.Ann. 589

STATE OF LOUISIANA v. GEORGE C. WRIGHT

No. 10,173

Supreme Court of Louisiana

May 1, 1888

APPEAL from the Criminal District Court, Parish of Orleans Roman, J.

M. J Cunningham, Attorney General, for the State.

W. L Evans for Defendant and Appellant.

OPINION

TODD J.

The defendant appeals from a sentence of ten year's imprisonment at hard labor, imposed after conviction of manslaughter on an indictment for murder.

The grounds upon which he rests his appeal are presented by several bills of exception found in the record.

I.

The first exception was taken to the ruling of the court permitting the Attorney General to interrogate a witness for the defense, on his cross-examination, touching a matter about which he had not been asked nor testified in his direct examination.

We gather from the bill of exceptions and the reasons assigned by the trial judge the following facts connected with the ruling complained of.

The witness, Mrs. Dehan, had testified, on her direct examination, that on the day the homicide occurred she was employed as a servant at the house wherein the killing took place; that in the house there was a bar-room; in the rear of the bar-room a hall, and in the rear of the hall a dining-room.

That she was standing at the door leading from the hall into the bar-room; that she saw the deceased open that door, cross the hall, knock three times at the dining-room door, which was opened to him by his sister, the wife of the accused.

That harsh words passed between the deceased and his sister; he abused her, and told her he had come for some pictures. That the accused, who was at breakfast, rose from his seat, asked the accused to be more guarded in his language towards his (accused's) wife, and sharp words were then exchanged between them.

That the wife of the accused then said to the deceased, "Stop that fuss and I will get the pictures." That she left the dining-room and went up stairs, leaving the parties in the dining-room. From there she passed into the yard, and on her return to the hall she saw the accused going to the bar-room with a pistol in his hand.

There the direct examination stopped. On the cross-examination she was asked, substantially, to state what occurred then in the bar-room between the accused and the deceased -- whether she heard the report of a pistol, and who fired it.

Thereupon counsel for the accused objected to the questions, his objection being (quoting):

"That the State attorney has no right to cross-examine any witness for the defendant except as to facts and circumstances connected with the matters stated in the direct examination."

The objection was overruled and the answers of the witness admitted, for reasons assigned by the judge, to the effect that the questions and answers of the witness were closely connected with the facts stated on her direct examination, and, "further, that the ends of justice would be subserved by allowing the witness to state fully all she knew in relation to the case."

It is an elementary principle of the criminal law, and one often recognized in our jurisprudence, that a witness can only be cross-examined on the subject matter of his examination in chief, or on something closely connected therewith, or, as stated by Greenlief:

"The rule is now considered by the Supreme Court of the United States, to be well established, that a party has no right to cross-examine any witness except as to facts and circumstances connected with the matters stated in his direct examination."

This dictum, though not now applicable to civil cases, still rules in criminal cases. Roscoe, Crim. Ev. 173; Archibald, Crim. Pleadings, 157; State vs. Lacombe, 12 Ann. 196; State vs. Denis, 19 Ann. 119; State vs. Swayzie, 1323.

One of the reasons assigned by the trial judge for his ruling admitting the evidence was (quoting): "That the ends of justise could be best subserved by allowing the witness to state fully all she knew in relation to the case before us." An apt reply to this is to be found in the decisions cited above, 19 Ann. 119, from which we quote:

"The discretion which is claimed for courts to relax, to change or to utterly disregard the rules of criminal evidence which the Legislature has decreed obligatory, would effectually make the law a dead letter. Cases might occur wherein a relaxation of the rule might serve to advance the course of justice, but this is no reason why the general rules of evidence should not be observed, and until the law of evidence in criminal proceedings is changed, our courts are not justified in disregarding rules of evidence. It was well said by Lord Kenyon that "Rules of evidence are of vast importance to all orders and degrees of men, and that our lives, our liberty and our property are concerned in support of them."

The only remaining question on this point is whether the questions to the witness, allowed by the judge, are obnoxious to this rule -- in other words, were they closely "connected with the facts stated in the direct examination," which is the test of their admissibility under the rule quoted.

We note that the witness in the direct examination testified exclusively to what occurred before the killing, in the hall and dining-room,...