Case ID: mich-np-r_1/html/lxxxiii-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Graves, J.\n    ", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

The People vs. Doyle.
    Where, upon cross-examination, testimony as to other facts íb elicited which tends to cast doubt upon the alleged fact in controversy, it is proper to re-examine with a view to the clearing up of such doubts.
    To compare the deportment of the accused with others, held, in this case, not erroneous.
    Error to Recorder’s Court, Detroit.
   Graves, J.

The plaintiff was found guilty of attempted murder. The errors assigned were upon the admission of evidence. George Taliaferro, a grandson of Mrs. De Baptiste, having given evidence on the part of the people, tending to show that his mother, the accused, had mingled poison with wine, which Mrs. De Baptiste; his garndmother, drank, Feb. 23, 1870, and that the latter was ill after drinking the wine, was asked by the prosecuting attorney whether his grandmother was ill a few days previous to the 23rd, from eating mush. This question, was, on objection, withdrawn. On cross-examination by the the prisoner’s counsel, the witness testified that he did not know that his father left him any property, that he was the only surviving child of the prisoner, that he had - lived with his grandmother, MrS. De Baptiste, nearly all his life, that his father, the first husband of the prisoner, was dead, and left a lot to him on Beaubien street, which went to him. after his mother’s death and another lot, which went to his mother, the prisoner, after his grandmother’s death, and next to him, and that his grandmother had been ill since the Friday'night before Feb. 23, that she had upon the Friday night mentioned, eaten of- several' articles which he believed to have been poisoned, and been ill after so eating. He was then re-examined by the prosecuting attorney, and asked this questipn: “Who made the mush your grandmother ate that Friday night ?” The prisoner’s counsel objected to the question as immaterial and irrelevant, and .also as calling for testimony tending to prove another and distinct offense. The objection was overruled and the witness answered, ‘‘ My mother made it.”

It was claimed, for the prisoner, that this question was improper, hut held by the Court that with the view of clearing up some doubts which hung about the subject as to the mush and other matters it was proper and correctly admitted.

Mrs. De Baptiste having testified that the conduct of the prisoner after giving her the wine, was strange and unaccountable, while that of Taliaferro and his associate was as kind as could he, it was objected that this testimony was irrelevant and tended to operate unfavorably against the prisoner by contrasting the two kinds of deportment.

Held, however, that the testimony was relevant, and the exceptions were overruled, and the Recorder’s Court was ordered to proceed with judgment.