Case ID: la-ann_47-2/html/1540-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Nicholls, C. J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

No. 11,869.
    The State of Louisiana vs. Louis Martin, alias Bull Martin.
    1. Tlie rejection, on cross-examination, of a State witness, of questions propounded to liim to bring out (as part of a conversation to which witness had referred in his direct examination), certain statements which it was assumed had been made by the accused to the witness, is not a ground of complaint when these statements have gone to the jury through the testimony of this same witness, when on the stand in rebuttal, and also through the testimony of another witness.
    2. When instructions given by the judge to the jury correctly and fully state the law, it would be worse than useless to give additional special charges to them on points accurately covered. A multiplicity of charges only tends to confuse them.
    APPEAL from the Criminal District Court for the Parish of Orleans. Ferguson, J.
    
    
      W. J. Cunningham, Attorney General, and Charles A. Butler, District Attorney, for Appellee.
    
      II. C. Prevost and James C. Walker for Defendant, Appellant.
    Submitted on briefs November 9, 1895.
    Opinion handed down November 18, 1895.
    
      Defendant was indicted and tried on the charge of having killed and murdered one Ella Speed, and having been convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to the penitentiary, he has appealed.
    The questions submitted to the court are set out in the bills of exception.
    The first bill states that “on the trial of the ease Captain John Journee, of the police force, a witness for the State, having testified in answer to questions propounded by the District Attorney that on the following morning (the morning after the killing) the accused and Toney Martini called at his house, and Martini said: ‘ Here is Martin to surrender; ’ that after he dressed himself he immediately proceeded with him to the Third Precinct Station and locked him up;” the District Attorney then said to the witness: “He was not arrested, but surrendered to you on the following morning between 6 and 7 o’clock, at your house?” and the witness having answered “Yes,” the witness was then turned over to the defendant’s counsel, who propounded to him the following question: “You have told us part óf that conversation, now tell us all of it; ” but the question was not permitted to be answered, on the objection made by the District Attorney that what was said by the accused to the witness twenty-four hours after the alleged crime, being self-serving declarations, was inadmissible and irrelevant.
    • That prior to ruling upon the objection the judge required the jury to retire, and the jury having retired, the judge asked counsel of defendant the purpose of his propounding the question, and in answer thereto, counsel out of the presence of the jury stated, that part of the conversation sought to be elicited was to the effect that when Martini made the statement to Journee. “ Here is Louis Martin, he has come to surrender,” Louis Martin thereupon informed Journee as to the particulars of the accident, resulting in the death of Ella Speed; that Louis Martin stated to Journee that during the morning of the 3d of September deceased in some way got possession of his loaded pistol without his knowledge, and that he, Martin, in his effort to get back the pistol from her, and to keep her from any harm to herself, tried to take it away from her, and in the scuffle and struggle between the two for the possession of the pistol, it was accidentally discharged, and caused the death of Ella Speed. That all this took place as part of the same conversation between Martini, Journee and Martin at the time of the surrender referred to by Journee in his testimony; that said conversation took place on the 4th September, the day following the death of Ella Speed.”
    The District Court assigned as the reason for its ruling that “ the witness was asked to state what was said to him by the accused twenty-four hours after the commission of the alleged crime. It was not part of the alleged crime. It was not a confession. It was a declaration made by a defendant in his own favor which was sought to be introduced. It was a self-serving declaration. The accused could, and in fact did, subsequently swear to the facts attempted to be elicited from the witness Journee.”
    “That Journee testified in rebuttal and was asked to repeat the statement made to him by the accused at the time of his surrender to him, Journee — Journee acting at that time as Chief of Police. That no objection was made to the question and the witness gave to the jury the statement of the defendant relative to the killing; that Journee testified that this was the same conversation or statement that the attorney of defendant asked about when he was stopped by an objection by the State; that a witness for the defendant (Martini) testified relative to the same statement, as the whole would appear by their testimony annexed as part of the bill of exception; that the accused succeeded in getting the said evidence before the jury repeatedly and defendant was not prejudiced by the ruling.”
    The second bill states that the court refused to make, at the request of defendant’s counsel, the following special charge :
    “ If the jury are satisfied, after considering all of the evidence, that there is a probability of defendant’s innocence, the court charges that such probability of innocence is a just foundation for a reasonable doubt of his guilt and therefore for his acquittal.”
    The District Court refused this charge because it had charged the jury fully as to a reasonable doubt, and besides its general charges had, by request, made a special charge to the jury on the same subject. That it had instructed the jury “that the jury may be said to entertain a reasonable doubt when, after the entire comparison and consideration of all the evidence, they can say that they feel an abiding conviction to a moral certainty of the truth of the charge. That proof beyond reasonable doubt is such proof as precludes every reasonable hypothesis, except that which it tends to support. It is proof to a moral certainty as distinguished from an absolute certainty. That the two phrases, proof beyond a reasonable doubt and proof to a moral certainty are synonymous and equivalent. Each signifies such proof as satisfies the judgment of the jury as reasonable men and applying their reason to the evidence before them that ■ the crime charged has been committed by the defendant, and so satisfies them as to leave no other reasonable conclusion possible.”
    And further, that “the charge requested to be given, which was refused, was absolutely inconsistent and irreconcilable with the special charges given, and practically required the court to determine what evidence was sufficient to constitute a reasonable doubt — that the charge requested would, if given, have invaded the province of the jury.”
   The opinion of the court was delivered by

Nicholls, C. J.

Defendant took no exception either to the general or to the special charges given to the jury, and we assume he was satisfied with them as containing correct enunciatious of the law. His only complaint is that the court did not make the special charge which he requested should be made. When the charge actually made correctly and fully states the law, it would be worse than useless to have additional special charges on points already accurately covered. A multiplicity of charges only tends to confuse the jury. We think the charges given by the court more fully protected the accused than did the special charges requested.

We see no good ground of complaint as to the matters referred to in the first bill of exception. Giving the defendant the full benefit of accepting as correct his proposition that Journee should have been permitted to have detailed statements which defendant’s counsel assumed might have been made to him by Martin at the time that Martini said to him: “Here is Martin to surrender,” it is shown that the statements which he sought to elicit were afterward repeatedly given to the jury by Journee and by Martini. We do not see in what manner accused was prejudiced by the statements having been brought out on rebuttal of Journee instead of on his cross-examination. The substantial result to be obtained was to have the statements go to the jury, and this was done. Defendant had the benefit of the statements.

We notice that in Martin’s own testimony brought up with the records he denies having made the statements which were sought to be proved.

It is perfectly clear that if statements were made by him to Journee on the day after the killing they were not part of the res gestee, and that they were inadmissible. In this case there was no conversation at all by Martin at the time of the surrender, nor did Martini himself undertake to make any statement as to the occurrences of the day before, or to detail any conversation had by him with Martin; all that he did then was to announce a single fact — that Martin was on the spot to surrender.

We have been shown no grounds for setting aside the verdict and reversing the judgment.

The judgment appealed from is affirmed.