eBook details
- Title: People State New York v. James Edward Branch
- Author : Supreme Court of New York
- Release Date : January 02, 1970
- Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 66 KB
Description
[34 A.D.2d 541 Page 541] In our opinion it was prejudicial error to permit the prosecutor to question defendant about two other similar crimes allegedly
committed by him and for which he had been indicted but not yet tried, since on this record it seems clear that the intent
of those questions was not to impeach his credibility but rather to show that he had a propensity to commit the crime for
which he was on trial (People v. Johnson, 31 A.D.2d 842; see, also, People v. McKinney, 24 N.Y.2d 180, 184; People v. Zackowitz,
254 N. Y. 192, 197; People v. Brown, 265 App. Div. 153, 157). It was also error to permit a police officer to read into evidence
a pretrial statement made by an accomplice who testified at the trial for the People, since (a) the pretrial statement was
consistent with the accomplice's trial testimony; (b) the accomplice's trial testimony had been attacked on cross-examination,
not as a recent fabrication, but as a falsehood concocted before the consistent pretrial statement was given to the police
in order to gain favorable treatment for the accomplice from the prosecutor; and (c) the pretrial statement consequently was
not made before a motive to falsify arose or at a time when there was no motive to falsify (cf. Ferris v. Sterling, 214 N.
Y. 249; People v. Singer, 300 N. Y. 120; which cases held that a prior consistent statement may be used to bolster trial testimony
attacked as a recent fabrication, if the prior statement was made at a time when there was no motive to falsify). Nor can
we say, on this record, that this error [34 A.D.2d 541 Page 542]