Opinion ID: 1499192
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Alleged Errors as to the First Count.

Text: 1. The defendant called three character witnesses who testified that he had an excellent reputation for honesty, truthfulness and being a law-abiding citizen. On cross-examination, they were asked whether they had heard (a) that in 1927 he had been convicted in a New York court and sentenced to pay a fine of $100 or 30 days in jail, and (b) that in 1920 he had been arrested for receiving stolen goods. The judge, out of the jury's presence, received the assurance of the government's counsel that defendant had been thus arrested in 1920. The defendant, on the witness stand, had previously admitted the conviction in 1927. The judge, when these witnesses were being questioned, said: However, I instruct the jury that what is happening now is this: the defendant has called character witnesses, and the basis for the evidence given by those character witnesses is the reputation of the defendant in the community, and since the defendant tenders the issue of his reputation the prosecution may ask the witness if she has heard of various incidents in his career. I say to you that regardless of her answer you are not to assume that the incidents asked about actually took place. All that is happening is that this witness' standard of opinion of the reputation of the defendant is being tested. Is that clear? In his charge to the jury, the judge said: In connection with the character evidence in the case I permitted a question whether or not the witness knew that in 1920 this defendant had been arrested for receiving stolen goods. I tried to give you the instruction then that that question was permitted only to test the standards of character evidence that these character witnesses seemed to have. There isn't any proof in the case that could be produced before you legally within the rules of evidence that this defendant was arrested in 1920 for receiving stolen goods, and that fact you are not to hold against him; nor are you to assume what the consequences of that arrest were. You just drive it from your mind so far as he is concerned, and take it into consideration only in weighing the evidence of the character witnesses. The questions were of the kind often held proper in examining character witnesses. [7] That being the rule, we see no abuse of discretion in permitting them to be asked here. [8] Defendant asserts error in putting the question about the 1920 arrest to a witness who had known defendant only since 1932. We cannot agree, for she might have heard rumors of an arrest which happened before she knew him. 3. On direct examination by his own counsel, defendant testified to his conviction in 1927 on a charge of possessing counterfeit watch-dials, but that he had no other trouble since he had been in the United States. On cross-examination, defendant testified that, in 1930, in an application signed by him for a license for vending second-hand jewelry, he had never been arrested for any offense. Thereupon he was asked whether he had stated in this application that he had been convicted of counterfeiting trade-marks on watches. His counsel objected on the ground that the conviction had been for possession of counterfeit. The court said, Sustained on that ground. Government counsel then asked, You did not say in that paper that you had been arrested and that you were convicted of that charge? No objection was made. We find no prejudicial error. 4. Defendant complains that the judge in his charge unfairly interpreted the testimony of a witness, Osterfeld, in a manner prejudicial to defendant. We think the interpretation not unfair. But, even assuming the contrary, there is no reversible error. In the first place, defendant did not object to this part of the charge. [9] In the second place, the judge made it plain that, despite his comments on the evidence, the jury were to rely on their own recollection of the evidence. Affirmed as to the first count; Reversed as to the second.