Case Name: PEOPLE v. BUCKLEY
Court: New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 1904-03-18
Citations: 87 N.Y.S. 191
Docket Number: 
Parties: PEOPLE v. BUCKLEY.
Judges: 
Reporter: West's New York Supplement
Volume: 87
Pages: 191–196

Head Matter:
(91 App. Div. 586.)
PEOPLE v. BUCKLEY.
(Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Second Department.
March 18, 1904.)
1. Escape—Information—Statutes—Construction—Attempt.
Pen. Code, § 87, declares that a person who, intending to effect or facilitate the escape of a prisoner, whether the escape is effected or attempted or not, conveys to a prisoner any information, is guilty of a felony, if the prisoner is held on a charge of felony. An indictment under such section charged defendant with sending a letter to a prisoner confined in a jail for burglary, with intent to facilitate the prisoner’s escape, but the letter set out did not contain any information calculated to directly aid the escape, but merely communicated to the recipient a system of cipher which the sender expressed an intention to use in a subsequent letter in which he promised to give the details of a plan to release two of recipient’s fellow prisoners. Held, that since the information, the sending of which is prohibited by such section, is only such as can have some tendency, if acted on, to enable prisoners to escape, the sending of the letter described was, at most, an attempt to commit the offense prohibited,
2. Same—Overt Act.
The sending of such letter constituted a sufficient overt act, showing an intention to commit the crime, to justify a conviction for an attempt.
3. Same.
The sending of the letter constituted an attempt to commit the offense, though it was a mere preparation, or an act merely preliminary to the commission thereof.
4. Same—Witness—Rebuttai,.
In a criminal prosecution it was error for the court to permit witness for the people, called in rebuttal, to characterize the testimony of defendant’s witnesses as untrue.
Appeal from Queens County Court.
John Buckley was convicted of conveying information to a prisoner held on a charge of felony, intended to facilitate such prisoner’s escape, and he appeals. Reversed.
Argued before HIRSCHBERG, P. J., and BARTLETT, JENKS, WOODWARD, and HOOKER, JJ.
Philip Wohlstetter and Thomas M. Tyng (J. M. Brinbaum, on the brief), for appellant.
George A. Gregg, Dish Atty. of Queens County, for respondent.

Opinion:
WILLARD BARTLETT, J.
That portion of section 87 of the Penal Code which is material to the case at bar is as follows:
"A person who, with intent to effect or facilitate the escape of a prisoner, whether the escape is effected or attempted or not, conveys to a prisoner any information, is guilty of felony, if the prisoner is held upon a charge, arrest, commitment, or conviction for a felony."
The indictment is based upon the provision which I have quoted. It accuses John Buckley of "the crime of sending and conveying into a prison, and to a prisoner confined therein charged with felony, a letter or thing of information, with intent to thereby effect or facilitate the escape of a prisoner or prisoners then confined in said prison upon charges of felony." The act charged as constituting the crime is the sending by the defendant to one William Carroll, a prisoner confined in the Queens County Jail upon the charge of burglary, of a letter with intent to effect or facilitate the escape of prisoners confined in the same' jail upon charges of felony. The letter is set out in the indictment. It does not contain any information calculated directly to aid an escape, but it communicates to the recipient a somewhat complicated system of cipher writing, which the sender expresses the intention of using in a subsequent letter in which he will' give the details of a plan for effecting the release of two of the recipient's fellow prisoners. The cipher consists of short marks above and below a straight line, resembling in some respects the symbols employed in stenography, and strikingly suggestive of the cipher solved by Sherlock Holmes, which forms the basis of Conan Doyle's well-known story of "The Dancing Men."
Upon the trial the defendant admitted having sent this letter, but denied that he intended thereby to convey any information whereby the prisoners could effect their escape. There was testimony in behalf of the prosecution, however, tending to show that the intent of the sender must have been to facilitate such escape. Assuming that intent to have existed, the question is whether the sending of a letter of this character constitutes the offense defined by that portion of section 87 of the Penal Code which has been quoted, or only an attempt to commit that offense. I am of the opinion that under this indictment no conviction could be sustained for anything more than an attempt. The pleader has assumed, and I think correctly, that the information, the sending of which is prohibited by section 87, is only such as can have some tendency, i'f acted upon, to enable prisoners to escape from incarceration. No such information is conveyed by this letter. The writer promises to send information of this character hereafter, by means of the cipher which he sets out, but he expressly withholds the details of his plan for future communication through the instrumentality of that cipher. Such, at least, is the conclusion which might be reached by a jury upon a consideration of the letter itself in the light of the evidence in the record. The letter was obviously designed to be the first link in a chain of communication between the sender and the recipient. The omission therefrom of the information which the statute is intended to prohibit does not prevent it from being regarded as a step toward the furnishing of such information. If so, I think the sending of the letter, with the intent to facilitate the escape of a prisoner confined upon a charge of felony, may well be deemed an attempt to commit the crime denounced by section 87 of the Penal Code. To constitute an attempt, there must be an overt act done with the intention of eventually committing the crime, and having a tendency to effect its commission. Here was the necessary overt act in the sending of the letter. The intent is sufficiently charged in the indictment, and, as I have said, a jury might well infer its existence from the evidence.
But was the sending of the letter an act tending to effect the commission of the crime? I think it was. It established, if the missive were not intercepted, a secret method of communication between the parties to the correspondence, not innocent in its character, but intended to be employed for a criminal purpose. It is argued in behalf of the appellant that the facts charged in the indictment and proved upon the trial constitute at most a preparation to commit a crime, being acts merely of a preliminary nature, and that such preparations have never been held to amount to an attempt to commit the offense in contemplation. This doctrine, that mere preparation can never be deemed an attempt to commit a crime, has not been universally accepted, as is pointed out in the case of People v. Sullivan, 173 N. Y. 122, 65 N. E. 989, 93 Am. St. Rep. 582, where the opinion of the Court of Appeals was written by Cullen, J., and contains an interesting and instructive discussion of the law of this state relating to the elements necessary to constitute an attempt to commit a crime. He shows that the courts of this state have not accepted the doctrine of the early English cases to the effect that, in order to constitute an attempt, the overt act must be the final one toward the completion of the offense, and of such a character that, unless interrupted, the offense itself would have been committed. While conceding the difficulty of formulating any general rule by which to determine whether acts are too remote to amount to an attempt to commit a crime, he lays down this proposition as the result of his examination of the cases:
"Whenever the acts of a person have gone to the extent of placing it in his power to commit the offense, unless interrupted, and nothing but such interruption prevents his present commission of the offense, at least, then, he is guilty of an attempt to commit the offense, whatever may be the rule as to his conduct before it reached that stage."
In the case at bar the sending of the cipher, placed it in the power of the defendant to communicate secret information for the purpose of promoting the escape of prisoners in the jail to which the letter was sent. If, as a jury might have found, the interception of the letter alone prevented the defendant from sending such subsequent information, he would be guilty of an attempt to commit a felony under section 87 of the Penal Code, provided the proof also established the existence of the necessary criminal intent. If I am correct in-these views, it follows that the conviction, which is for a felony under section 87, and not for an attempt to commit such a felony, must be reversed; and, as the indictment sets out facts constituting an attempt only, the new trial must be confined to that charge alone. For the guidance of the court upon such new trial, it may be well to point out that we regard it as error to permit witnesses for the people, called in rebuttal, to characterize the testimony of witnesses for the defendant as untrue, as was done upon the trial under review.
Judgment reversed, and new trial ordered.