People v. Evans

167 P. 190, 34 Cal. App. 284, 1917 Cal. App. LEXIS 96
CourtCalifornia Court of Appeal
DecidedJuly 9, 1917
DocketCrim. No. 369.
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 167 P. 190 (People v. Evans) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering California Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
People v. Evans, 167 P. 190, 34 Cal. App. 284, 1917 Cal. App. LEXIS 96 (Cal. Ct. App. 1917).

Opinion

HART, J.

The defendant, Charles Evans, a colored man, jointly with three other persons, to wit, John Mackie, Toney Paresi, and Parthenia Hughson, a colored woman, was informed against by the district attorney of Stanislaus County for the crime of burglary. Evans was given a separate trial, *285 which resulted in his conviction of the crime as so charged, and he prosecutes this appeal from the judgment and the order denying him a new trial.

A proposition which should first be disposed of is involved in the application of the defendant for a “further transcription of the testimony,” said application being made under section 1247c of the Penal Code, and supported by the affidavit of the attorney for the accused.

Said affidavit reads, in part: “The defendant requests that all the phonographic reporter’s notes be transcribed in the case against Charles Evans, and also the testimony of the co-defendants, Paresi, Mackie, and Stella Huston in the trials of Toney Paresi and John Mackie. That the phonographic reporter of said court, N. E. Leak, Esquire, failed and neglected to transcribe ‘the testimony of the co-defendants, Paresi, Mackie, and Stella Huston in the trials of Toney Paresi and John Mackie,’ although asked for in said application and not excepted to by the district attorney; that the final work of transcribing said notes and typewriting the same was performed by Mr. Leak’s assistant at a time when said Leak was in the Sierra Nevada mountains on a vacation trip, and incapable of being reached by any form of communication before the statutory time had elapsed for filing said transcription with your Honorable Court. That, therefore, this deponent relying upon section 1247c of the Penal Code of the state of California hereby makes this application for a further transcription of the testimony in said case, namely the testimony of John Mackie, Toney Paresi, and Stella Huston, and this deponent further states that in his belief such testimony is expedient and necessary for the prosecution of the appeal in the above entitled action; and further that the omission of the testimony of these three witnesses, upon which new evidence Toney Paresi and John Mackie, codefendants of this defendant were acquitted, is absolutely necessary to properly present defendant’s case to this court.”

Thus it will be noticed that the testimony which the defendant asks be transcribed and certified to this court is testimony which was not introduced into this case, either by way of impeachment of the persons whose testimony is desired, in which case it would have been necessary that they should have testified in this case, or otherwise. The only other way we can conceive of in which said testimony might have properly been *286 brought to our notice would have been by incorporating it into or making it a part of an affidavit filed and used in support of the motion for a new trial on the ground of newly discovered evidence. This course was not adopted, however.

It would seem to be unnecessary to suggest that said testimony, even if the application for its transcription and certification to this court were allowed, could not be considered for any purpose in disposing of these appeals. The application must be denied, and it is so ordered.

There is, however, another point in connection with the order denying a new trial which may now be appropriately considered. In presenting his motion for a new trial, counsel for the defendant stated to the court that he had learned of some other witnesses than those who had testified in the case whose testimony would tend to establish an alibi for the accused, and, he admitted, that information concerning said witnesses had been conveyed to him during the progress of the trial and before it had closed, although, he declared, he understood then that those witnesses would merely testify to the good character of the defendant rather than to facts which would go toward showing that his client was in no position or situation at the time the crime was committed to have taken any part in the commission thereof. But counsel filed no affidavits, made by said witnesses, disclosing the nature of the testimony they would give and so showing, if thus he could, that such testimony would be material to the defendant’s case and that he could not, with reasonable diligence, have discovered and produced such evidence at the trial. (Pen. Code, sec. 1181, subd. 7.) Besides, it is quite probable that the defendant would have experienced much difficulty on the question of diligence, for it is evident, as the learned trial court-suggested, in disposing of the motion, that the defendant must have known, or at least, by the exercise of reasonable diligence, could have known, of the evidence referred to. In fact, as before shown, his learned counsel admitted before the court, when pressing his motion for a trial de novo, that the defendant told him of the said evidence, but that he (counsel) misunderstood his client as to the nature of the evidence to which the accused referred, and so obtained the erroneous impression that it involved character testimony rather than proof of a more substantial nature in its bearing upon the case.

*287 Upon the alleged ground of newly discovered evidence the motion for a new trial was properly denied.

It is contended, however, that the evidence does not justify the verdict, and that upon this ground a new trial should have been granted, and that the refusal to grant said motion calls for a reversal.

The facts which the evidence appears to have justified the jury in finding may thus be stated: The hardware store of the firm of Lewis & Byrd, at the town of Newman, in Stanislaus County, was entered at some time between the hours of half-past 8 of the Saturday evening of June 24, 1916, and half-past 8 o ’clock of the following morning—Sunday, the 25th of June —and a large number of articles, including shotguns, pocketknives, razors, and other small articles of hardware, was taken therefrom. Lewis, one of the members of the firm, having been the first person to go to the store on Sunday morning, was the first to discover that the store had been burglarized. On investigation, he found that a window in the rear of the store had been pried open and that evidently entrance into the building had been made through said window.

The local officers were, immediately upon the discovery of the crime, informed of the commission thereof and at once proceeded upon a search for the perpetrators and kept up the search until Monday, the twenty-sixth day of June, when they overtook the defendants at a point two or three miles south of the village of Dos Palos, in said county, and a considerable distance from Newman. The four defendants were traveling together in a spring wagon, drawn by a pair of horses. The officers placed the quartet under arrest and on investigation found the stolen articles in the possession of the defendants. Some of these articles were in ah old suitcase belonging to Evans and the woman. Each of the male defendants had on his person, in the pockets of his pantaloons, from two to four of the pocket-knives stolen from the store. The woman had in her possession two of the stolen pocketknives and a cheap watch, which she claimed were given her by Paresi.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
167 P. 190, 34 Cal. App. 284, 1917 Cal. App. LEXIS 96, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-evans-calctapp-1917.