The San Francisco call., 1896-03-22
The Ukiah Deacon Given An
other Chance by the Su-
preme Court.
EVIDENCE WRONGLY ADMITTED
Confessions of an Accomplice Were
Allowed to Go Before the
Jury.

The order denying new trial to "Dea-
con- David Oldham. found guilty of con-
spring to rob the Ukiah stase. has been
set aside by the Supreme Court. Oldham
will have to be tried again.
The grounds upon which the order was
set aside were that the trial court had
wrongfully admitted damaging evidence
against the prisoner. The evidence thus
admitted was that of the officer who ar
rested George Hilton, the actual highway
man, and to whom Hilton told practically
the whole scheme.
Hilton held up the coast-bound stage
from Ukiah. There was $1,000 in the
treasury box, and this he secured and
buried. Some days later he was arrested
in an adjoining county, and to the officer
arresting him he confessed the crime, and
told enough to implicate Deacon Oldham.
church member of Ukiah, as one OF the
planners of the hold-up. Hilton also told
where he had buried the money, and most
of it was recovered.
When Oldham came to trial the officer
who arrested Hilton testified to what the
prisoner had told him. This was objected
to on the ground that it was hearsay, but
the court admitted the evidence. After
ward Hilton came On the stand and re-
peated the statements made by him to the
arresting officer, and to which the officer
testified. The prosecution claimed that
Hilton's subsequent appearance cured
that it was further cured by the courts
instruction to the jury to disregard every
thing not said in the defendants presence.
The Supreme Court holds the error too
serious, however, to be wiped out by later
acts. In commenting on the point it says:
Evidence of the statements OF a co-conspira-
tor, made during the life OF the conspiracy, is
admissible against the other conspirator; but
after the crime has been committed the con-
spiracy is an accomplished fact-it is thing
of the past, and such statements OF q Cocoon
spifatOr stand in no different relation to the
law and are no more admissible against de-
tendant than though he were total stranger
to the whole transaction, for they were the
purest hearsay.
The court then notes former decision,
as follows:
1t was never competent to use as evidence
against one on trial for an alleged crime the
statements of an accomplice not given as testi-
mony in the case nor made in the presence of
the defendant, nor during the pendency Of the
criminal enterprise and in furtherance of its
objects. To hold such testimony admissible
would be to ignore the rules of evidence settled
and everywhere recognized from the earliest
times.
Continuing, the court says:
If Hilton had refused to take the stand and
testify it could not be conJended for moment
that his confessions could have been used
against this defendant for the purpose of
proving the robbery or for any other purpose.
1t is insisted that the error of the court was
cured when the witness Hilton took the
stand and gave to the jury substantially the
same statements and confessions he had prior
to that time made to the officers. We cannot
say that the jury attached no importance to
those statements of Hilton made shortly after
the com mission of the crime, nor that the YER
dict would have been the same if they had
been rejected by the court.