People v. Lee

25 N.Y. Crim. 383, 70 Misc. 446, 129 N.Y.S. 185
CourtNew York Court of General Session of the Peace
DecidedJanuary 15, 1911
StatusPublished

This text of 25 N.Y. Crim. 383 (People v. Lee) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering New York Court of General Session of the Peace primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
People v. Lee, 25 N.Y. Crim. 383, 70 Misc. 446, 129 N.Y.S. 185 (N.Y. Super. Ct. 1911).

Opinion

Rosalsky, J.

This is a motion to dismiss three indictments filed against the above named defendant by the grand jury, as follows: Indictment Ho. 77,178, charging him in four counts, in various forms, with the crime of misappropriation by a public officer and grand larceny in the second degree; indictment Ho. 78,577, charging him in three counts, respectively, with making a false entry in an account as a public officer, with making a false entry in an account as a person receiving money on behalf of a city, and with making a false entry in an account book belonging to and appertaining to the city of New York with intent to defraud and conceal a larceny; indictment Ho. 78,552, charging him in one [385]*385count with the crime of extortion, in that the sum of seventy-five dollars, the personal property of Joseph Tino and John Belsone, copartners in trade engaged in business under the firm name and style of Joseph Tino & Co., was feloniously received by the defendant from the said copartners with their consent, such consent being then and there by him, the said Bichard H. Lee, induced by a wrongful use of fear, to wit: fear on the part of said copartners then and there by him, the said Bichard H. Lee, induced by means of a threat by him, the said Bichard H. Lee, then and there made to said copartners, that is to say, to injure, annoy, harass and obstruct them, the said copartners, in their business, and to prevent them from properly, freely and profitably carrying on the same, and, especially, to prevent and hinder them from receiving their merchandise at the public docks in the city of New York unless they, the said copartners, gave to him, the said Bichard H. Lee, the said sum of money,” etc.

The stenographer’s minutes show that the grand jury heard in a single proceeding the testimony of the people’s witnesses concerning the charges of grand larceny, forgery and extortion, and upon such testimony the said three indictments were found. The learned counsel for the defendant concede that while the misappropriation indictment and the forgery indictment might be deemed to relate to one transaction, which transaction might constitute those crimes, and that, while the hearing of those two charges in one proceeding might not furnish ground for objection, nevertheless it was manifest impropriety for the district attorney, in a single proceeding, to present evidence concerning the extortion charge, because the latter offense was absolutely unrelated and disconnected in point of time, circumstance and subject-matter, and urge that in presenting evidence of the extortion charge in the same proceeding the minds of the grand jurors were predisposed to believe the defendant guilty of all of the offenses, and that the [386]*386orderly practice and procedure before the grand jury required that the evidence relating to the extortion charge be separately heard.

In People v. Rutherford, 47 App. Div. 209, Mr. Justice Kellogg, writing for the court, said: The chief ground urged as legal error on the part of the grand jury is the listening to testimony of the one witness as to the whole transaction occurring between her and the defendant had at one time, touching the two notes, for the forging of each of which he was separately indicted. It certainly would not be improper for the same grand jury to indict the same man for two distinct offenses. Having indicted him once, it might with equal force be urged that the second indictment was in some way affected by the first, and that the grand jury was disqualified as unable to properly withstand the force of the odium resulting from the first indictment. I do not think that it was an invasion of any of the inalienable rights of the citizen to permit this common practice of hearing all the evidence of a single witness, when before the grand jury, bearing in a legal way upon any crime for which a person is sought to be indicted.”

In People v. Acritelli, 22 N. Y. Cr. Rep. 112, my learned associate, Judge Crain, in a lucid and well-considered opinion, said: . “ My view of the matter is that convenience suggests, where offenses belong to the same general class, as, for example, two charges of forgery, or two alleged violations of the election law, they be considered by the grand jury at the same time, without the necessity of that formal separation which would entail a delay in the repetition of evidence. Where, as in the case at bar, the deliberations of the grand jury result in indictments which cover all the crimes as to which testimony has been produced before the grand jury and the crimes are themselves of such a similar character that the grand jury cannot be said to have concluded that a defendant [387]*387•was guilty of one for the reason that they have found him guilty of another, no prejudice results to a defendant.

“ A different question would arise if the grand jury, in listening to testimony against a defendant, elicited for the purpose of establishing the defendant’s guilt of a particular offense, heard at the same time evidence against the same defendant bearing upon an unrelated crime, and which testimony did not result in an indictment respecting such other crime. In this event it might perhaps be urged with force that the grand jury in finding a given indictment had been influenced by the circumstance that there was testimony before it in impeachment of the defendant’s general character, and indicative of his commission of another offence. This is not the situation in the case at bar, and for the reasons stated I am of opinion that this contention cannot prevail.”

I agree with my learned associate that where, in a single proceeding, a grand jury hears evidence against a defendant bearing upon unrelated crimes, and upon such evidence finds indictments for all of the offenses, a defendant cannot be heard to urge that his rights were prejudiced before the grand jury. Counsel cite the case of the People v. Molineux, 168 N. Y. 264, in support of their contention. It is apparent that, on a trial of a defendant before a petit jury, a distinct crime unconnected with, and unrelated to, the charge laid in the indictment cannot be given in evidence against a prisoner, except where the evidence of the other crimes is offered to prove the specific crime charged, when it tends to establish: first, motives; second, intent; third, the absence of mistake or accident; fourth, a common scheme or plan embracing the commission of two or more crimes so related to each other that the proof of one tends to establish the others; fifth, the identity of the person charged with the commission of the crime on trial.

The district attorney, in presenting to the grand jury evidence of the unrelated crime in the same proceeding, did [388]*388not do so for the purpose of establishing the defendant’s guilt upon the charges of larceny and forgery, as is the case where evidence of other crimes is competent to prove .any one of the five subdivisions referred to in the Molineux case; but his purpose in presenting the evidence of the unrelated crime was to have the grand jury find an indictment for the unrelated crime itself.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Pierson v. . the People
79 N.Y. 424 (New York Court of Appeals, 1880)
People v. . Molineux
61 N.E. 286 (New York Court of Appeals, 1901)
People v. . Johnston
79 N.E. 1013 (New York Court of Appeals, 1907)
The People v. . Guidici
3 N.E. 493 (New York Court of Appeals, 1885)
People v. Rutherford
47 A.D. 209 (Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York, 1900)
People v. Weinseimer
117 A.D. 603 (Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York, 1907)
People v. Scherno
140 A.D. 95 (Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York, 1910)
In re the Writ of Corpus
9 Misc. 571 (New York Supreme Court, 1894)
People ex rel. Gunn v. Webster
26 N.Y.S. 1007 (New York Supreme Court, 1894)
People v. Mullen
24 N.Y. Crim. 427 (New York County Courts, 1910)
People v. Tyler
7 Mich. 161 (Michigan Supreme Court, 1859)
Montross v. State
61 Miss. 429 (Mississippi Supreme Court, 1883)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
25 N.Y. Crim. 383, 70 Misc. 446, 129 N.Y.S. 185, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-lee-nygensess-1911.