Court Opinion

ID: 9643052
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 18:16:53.325369+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:57.298614
License: Public Domain

PARKER, Circuit Judge
(concurring in result).
I agree that there was error in the-charge of the court below entitling the: *599defendant to a new trial, as pointed out in the opinion of the court, and also that the testimony covered by the fifth and seventh assignments’ of error should have been excluded. I do not think, however, that there was any error with respect to the admission of the testimony covered by the tenth, eleventh, fourteenth, and sixteenth assignments. This testimony tended to show that the defendant was engaged in the illicit traffic in liquor at and about the time of the transaction principally complained of by the government, and thus to negative his defense that in the, possession there involved he was innocent of criminal intent and engaged in the bona fide discharge of official duties. It was not necessary to render such testimony competent, that it relate to liquor in the possession of defendant in his official capacity. Any testimony tending to show that he was engaged in the illicit liquor business at the time was competent, as it had a direct bearing upon the truth or falsity of the defense that his admitted possession of the liquor in question was in his official capacity as a justice of the peace, and not for the purpose of violating the law. See Lynch v. U. S. (C. C. A. 4th) 12 F.(2d) 193; Ciafirdini v. U. S. (C. C. A. 4th) 266 F. 471; Hood v. U. S. (C. C. A. 10th) 59 F.(2d) 153.