Case ID: conn_36/html/0080-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Hinman, C. J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

The State vs. Nathan Noyes.
    A foreigner, ignorant of the English language, had testified through an interpreter as to certain facts, and on cross-examination had denied stating the facts differently. The opposing party then offered a witness to testify that some time before the trial, the foreigner had, through an interpreter, stated some of the facts differently to him. Held that the interpreter used on that occasion must he called as to what the foreigner said, and that the witness, who heard it only through the interpreter, could not testify to it.
    Information for an assault with intent to commit a rape ; brought to the Superior Court in New London county, and tried to the jury before Loomis, J.
    
    On the trial the attorney for the state offered evidence to show that, on the 29th day of November, 1868, the defendant, on his return from his father’s house in the town of Sprague, to the house of James C. Smith in the town of Norwich, met Joanna Murphy, the woman named in the information, on the road leading from Sprague to Norwich, about the hour of six in the evening, and assaulted and attempted to ravish her. The defendant offered evidence to prove that at the very time when the assualt was claimed to have been made he was in the house of Smith, and therefore could not have been the person who committed the crime. It became therefore a material question in the case, at what time the defendant left his father’s house at Sprague to return to Norwich. The attorney for the state offered Frank Erazio as a witness, who, being unable to speak or understand the English language, was examined through an interpreter, and who testified that he saw the defendant near Sprague, on the road leading towards Norwich, about the hour of five o’clock on the day ' when the crime was committed ; and on his cross-examination denied that he had ever stated to any person that he met him at a different and earlier hour. In order to prove that this witness had, prior to the trial, stated that he met the defendant at the place named earlier than at five o’clock, the defendant offered William A. Lewis as a witness, to prove that he had an interview with Erazio, by means of an ir preter, soon after the 29th day of November, and that j.t-azio, through a third person acting as interpreter, then stated to him that it was about the hour of four, and not five o’clock, when he met the defendant; but the witness had no knowledge of what Erazio stated except by the statements of the interpreter. To the admission of this testimony the attorney for the state objected, on the ground that, as Lewis had communicated with Frazio through an interpreter, the interpreter must be produced and sworn as to the declarations of Erazio at the interview with Lewis, and that Lewis could not himself testify to such declarations. The court sustained the objection and rejected the testimony.
    The jury returned a verdict of guilty, and the defendant moved for a new trial.
    
      Wait and Tenny, in support of the motion,
    cited Fabrigas v. Mostyn, 20 Howell’s State Trials, 123; 1 Greenl. Ev., § 183 ; 1 Phill. Ev., 385.
    
      Chadwick, State Attorney, and Ripley, contra.
   Hinman, C. J.

To impeach a witness who had testified through an interpreter in respect to the time when he saw the defendant on the road between Sprague and Norwich, and who on cross-examination denied that he had said to any one that he saw him at an earlier and different time, the defendant offered William A. Lewis to prove that, at an interview with the witness, he stated to him, through an interpreter, that he met the defendant an hour earlier than he had testified; and the court, on the objection of the attorney for the state, excluded the evidence of Lewis, on the ground that the interpreter should be called, as he alone could know and understand what the witness had said. We are of opinion that this ruling was right. The testimony of Lewis is open to .the objection of being hearsay merely. But it is claimed that the case of an interpreter who states what is said to him for the purpose of being communicated to another forms an exception to the general rule in respect to hearsay testimony, and the case of Fabrigas v. Mostyn, 20 Howell’s State Trials, 123, and the text books which refer to that case, are cited in support of the proposition. But the evidence was received in that case on the ground that the interpreter was the accredited agent of the parties themselves and was acting within the scope of his authority, and only on that ground.- But in this case the witness Lewis was the sole agent of the defendant, acting, it would seem, for the purpose of drawing out admissions from ¿he witness to be used against his testimony on the trial of the defendant. The testimony of such witnesses, volunteers for the purpose of drawing out admissions from witnesses, is suspicious enough at the best, and ought not to be encouraged by any modification of the rule in respect to hearsay evidence-There is no claim or pretence in this case that the interpreter could not easily have been had. Indeed he may have been present at the trial, and the defendant may have chosen to rely upon what Lewis would testify that he told him, rather than call the interpreter, when he could easily have done so as to what the witness himself said.

We do not advise a new trial.

In this opinion the other judges concurred.