Court Opinion

ID: 9448352
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 23:32:55.36573+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:23.807751
License: Public Domain

FAHY, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I agree that the evidence was sufficient to support the jury verdict of guilty; but the question which the accused asked on cross examination of a *124witness at the preliminary hearing, “How do you know it was me, when I had a handkerchief over my face?” I think was not an admission. The court allowed it to be put in evidence as an admission, and the prosecution made effective use of it in arguing the case to the jury. If not an admission its use as evidence, which was highly prejudicial, was erroneous. I think it was not an admission because in the context in which it was asked, assuming it was asked in the form stated, which the defendant denied, it should be construed as inquiring how the witness could identify the robber when he had a handkerchief over his face, not as an admission by the defendant that he was the robber.
In my view the case should be retried, for we cannot now say the jury would have reached the verdict it did had this evidence, which I think was erroneously admitted and used, been excluded.