Ball v. United States

147 F. 32, 78 C.C.A. 126, 2 Alaska Fed. 536, 1906 U.S. App. LEXIS 4182
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
DecidedJune 18, 1906
DocketNo. 1,221
StatusPublished
Cited by16 cases

This text of 147 F. 32 (Ball v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Ball v. United States, 147 F. 32, 78 C.C.A. 126, 2 Alaska Fed. 536, 1906 U.S. App. LEXIS 4182 (9th Cir. 1906).

Opinion

GILBERT, Circuit Judge,

after stating the case as above, delivered the opinion of the court.

It is assigned as error that the court overruled the motion of the plaintiff in error to require the district attor[542]*542ney to furnish him a list of all the witnesses to be produced against him on the trial in accordance with the provisions of section 1033 of the Revised Statutes. [18 U.S. C.A. § 562], That statute applies only to the trial of treason and capital cases in the courts of the United States. The present case was tried in a territorial court under the Penal Code and Code of Criminal Procedure of Alaska. Those Codes contain no requirement that a list of witnesses be furnished the accused upon demand or otherwise. In Thiede v. Utah Territory, 159 U.S. 510 — 515, 16 S.Ct. 62, 40 L.Ed. 237, it was held that section 1033 does not control practice and procedure in territorial courts. The court said: “In the absence of some statutory provision, there is no irregularity in calling a witness whose name does not appear on the back of the indictment or has not been furnished to the defendant before the trial.”

It is contended that the court erred in sustaining the objection of the district attorney to questions propounded to the witness Noble as to certain conversations which he had with Dackins and with the plaintiff in error on the day of the homicide. The witness testified that he had a conversation with Dackins in the afternoon of that day. He was asked: “Q. In that conversation did he say to you that the next time these men met one of them would be killed? A. No, sir. Q. Did he make any declaration in substance anything like that? (To which objection was made by the district attorney, and the objection was sustained by the court.)”

The witness was then asked: “Q. Did you say to Mr. Ball, after your conversation with Dackins, that one of these two men would get hurt the first time they came together? (To which an objection was also sustained.)”

It is claimed that the purpose of these questions was to show threats made by the deceased against the accused. We do not see how the testimony which was sought to be elicited can be said to indicate that threats were made. The questions called for no testimony as to what the deceased had said. They referred to conversations only between the witness and Dackins, and the witness and the accused, and called for testimony as to what opinion Dackins had expressed concerning the probability of trouble [543]*543between the deceased and the accused, and as to what opinion on that subject the witness had expressed to the accused. Such testimony was not admissible under any rule of evidence. It was not admissible as part of the res gesta, nor as the declaration of a co-conspirator. There is nothing in the record to indicate that Dackins was unfriendly to the plaintiff in error or wished him harm. There is nothing to show that he ever made any threat against him. At the time when Deppe was killed, Dackins was sitting in the cabin of the plaintiff- in error in conversation with Noble, and was unarmed. There is nothing to show that he knew or supposed that the deceased was coming to the cabin that night. We find no error in the exclusion of the proffered testimony.

Error is assigned to the introduction in evidence of minutes of the election of officers of the marble company and a letter of the secretary of that company to Noble, which was taken by Deppe when he went to Fox Island and there delivered to Noble. The objection made to the admission of this evidence is that the election of officers referred to in the minutes was absolutely void, and that said officers had no authority to direct Deppe to do the assessment work. The testimony was introduced for the purpose of showing the good faith of Deppe in going upon the property of the company to do the assessment work. We think it was admissible for that purpose. The homicide was not the result of any controversy over the possession of the property, and the evidence did not go to the jury for the purpose of showing that the plaintiff in error was not rightfully there. The court was careful to .instruct the jury that if they believed from all the evidence that the plaintiff in error, in good faith and in the honest belief that he had the legal right so to do, entered upon the company’s property for an honest purpose, he had the right to retain such possession, and it could not be forcibly interfered with or taken from him, except by due process of law, and that to defend such possession he had the same right as though he were legally the possessor thereof and in his own house.

It is contended that the court erred in striking out testimony given by the plaintiff in error as to what occurred when Deppe, Dackins, and Weir arrived on the property. [544]*544He said: “Apparently by arrangement they all rushed in there together.” This was clearly not competent testimony. It was evidence only of a deduction which the witness drew from the appearance of things. If there were facts or circumstances which indicated that the men rushed in there by arrangement, it was competent to prove them; but it was not competent to prove the impression made upon the mind of the witness.

It is assigned as error that the district attorney was permitted to ask the plaintiff in error on cross-examination whether he had not formerly, and under the name of Charles R. Mains, been convicted in the Northern District of California of the crime of using the United States mails in a scheme to defraud. To this it is sufficient to say, for reasons stated below, that the district attorney clearly had the right to ask the question. Under the ruling of the court the witness was not required to answer the question, and did not answer it.

The trial court,-over the objection of the plaintiff in error, admitted the record of the District CouT of the United States for the Northern District of California of the conviction of the plaintiff in error of said offense. It is contended that this was error on two grounds: First, that to admit in the trial court, for the purpose of impeaching or affecting the credibility of a witness therein, the record of his conviction in the United States court for the District of California, was to give extraterritorial effect and force to a judgment of that court, the effect of which is necessarily limited to the jurisdiction in which the offense was committed, and in which the judgment was rendered. To this proposition Commonwealth v. Green, 17 Mass. 515-536, is cited. What the court held in that case was that a witness was not rendered incompetent to testify in the courts of Massachusetts by proof of his conviction of a felony in the state of New York, the effect of which, under the law of New York, was to render him infamous and incompetent there to be sworn as. a witness, and that the judgment of conviction in that state had no extra-territorial effect. But that decision did not deny the admissibility in evidence of such testimony to affect the credibility of the witness. On the contrary, the court took pains to say of such witnesses: “Their for[545]*545iner condition and character may be made known to the jury to enable them to judge of their credibility, and this without depriving them of any valuable personal right by reason of their conviction abroad.”

The second ground of objection to the record is that it proved a conviction, not of a felony, but of a misdemeanor, and that it was therefore not admissible under the Code of Alaska. Section 669, p.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
147 F. 32, 78 C.C.A. 126, 2 Alaska Fed. 536, 1906 U.S. App. LEXIS 4182, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ball-v-united-states-ca9-1906.