Introduction
Prior to trial before a jury, McNeese was accused of committing a robbery using a deadly weapon. He had served an imprisonment term in the penitentiary at San Quentin after a conviction of armed robbery, before suffering another conviction for committing a similar crime. He admitted that the allegation about his previous conviction and imprisonment were true. The court had previously ruled based on fair evidence introduced by both the defendant and the people. However, the court denied the motion of the defendant for a new trial.
Facts
McNeese entered Guy H. Miller’s drug store in Los Angeles on the night of June 21st, 1939. At the store, McNeese held up an automatic pistol and robbed the person who was selling some narcotic preparations that were priced at $18 each. The defendant was clearly identified by the clerk and proprietor as the armed robber at the scene. The environmental conditions were good enough to see clearly, and the drug store was well equipped with sufficient light at the time the defendant robbed the store. Evidence presented before the court termed the conditions favorable for the witnesses who identified the defendant by observing from a distance of up to a maximum of four feet. In addition to the lightings, the intruder did not cover his face or wear any kind of disguise such as a mask. In fact, referring to the proprietor’s testimony, the scene of the crime was fitted with a 200-Watt light that lighted his face very clearly. After the crime, policemen visited and recorded evidence including the presence of a box that had narcotics assortment. The investigators identified the boxes as items belonging to the druggist after finding that the writings of cost marks exhibited on all the boxes were truly the handwriting of the druggist. The police visited the house of the defendant prior to the trial and recovered a gun holster, some hypodermic needles, a fake police badge as well as 38 and 32 caliber cartridges. At his trial, the defendant admitted that he was addicted to narcotics.
To oppose the foregoing, McNeese provided the court with witness’s testimony that he was seen in a bar in San Francisco at around 8 PM on the evening of the crime. They testified that McNeese was seen at San Francisco the day before the incidence, as well as the third and fourth day after the robbery. Another witness also provided a testimony that he met with McNeese in Oakland fifteen minutes after seven o’clock on the evening of the day the crime occurred. There was additional testimony that McNeese did not appear at a special party of his father in the city of Los Angeles on June 19th for which he claimed that he was absent. He stated that he was far away in the northern part of Los Angeles. Similar testimony was provided by a family member of the defendant.
The defendant testified on his behalf that he was addicted to narcotics. The drugs, which were retrieved by police from his apartment, were sold to him by a drug peddler in San Francisco. He stated that he was not involved in the robbery and told the court that he had been in San Francisco three days before the incident and about nine days after the incident occurred.
The Resolution
The jury had previously ruled on the case and defined an appeal as not frivolous. The jury also made it clear that any appeal after the ruling would not be penalized as frivolous. However, any issue presented after the previous ruling on the case would be a new one. It would be required to present facts not be amenable to simpler analysis pertaining to existing laws or the extension (Tyler, 2020). Reversal and modification of existing law were to be backed with reasoned argument. Without these conditions, the defendant would not be granted a new trial. Meanwhile, the appellant contended that the testimony about his client being in San Francisco on June 21 was not shaken and broken. Testimony for his identification was presented in a cross-examination that was not exactly in a number of particulars. The verdict was against the evidence and law that should have made the court grant the defendant a new trial. This way, the denial by the court of law for a new trial should be reversed.
The tax appellate tribunal of California State does not provide enough information regarding the standard procedure for substituting a ruling that has already been made with a new ruling (Haddad, 2016). As such, the jury would make a choice of revising their ruling if it was reasonable to do so, for example, if the defendant feels evidence was omitted during the trial. To justify support for this statement, the court referenced People v. Gilbert, where the state did not have any criminal law or procedure to guide the jury. The court also informed the appellant that he had no permission to see the person giving testimony. Therefore, the court did not observe the demeanor of witnesses upon standing as well as the existence or non-existence of candor in their testimony. The state’s legislature did not ordain that credibility of the person giving testimony was dependent on the jury as the exclusive judges. According to the code of civil procedures of California, section 1847, the jury should find evidence valuable if the appellant uses the right procedure to address certain issues during the previous ruling (Ledvora, 2020). Moreover, the jury should always consider valuable evidence because they are responsible for making the law clear to disputing parties.
The code of civil procedure, section 2061 limits the judges to only consider reasonable evidence regarding the application of law to a certain ruling. In fact, a contradiction in terms of testimony given between two different occasions may make the jury discard the appeal (Simonson, 2019). Combined with the alibi witnesses of the defendant, the druggist and his clerk’s testimony about the robbery circumstance and that among the participants therein was the defendant; and as such acted with no much regard to the strength in place that the prosecution witnesses’ might have looked or presented, or with little attention to the sharpness of the testimony of the prosecution witnesses on another substantial point may have conflicted with other witnesses’ testimony. Manifestly, as to amount to no existence of any substantial evidence, it is impossible to say that the druggist and his clerk’s testimonies are inherently improbable. Consequently, the jury has no power to influence the finding of triers of fact.
Conclusion
The appellant contended that there was an error in the court denying the instructions provided by the defendant. Upon defense, the jury had been corrected and in a fair way instructed on the advice of the court. The term alibi was interpreted as identifying the defendant as being in a different place when the robbery was committed. The jury considered all the evidence as per the request of the court. Therefore, if it raised any reasonable doubt sufficient as to term the defendant guilty, they should have been acquitted. The presence of the defendant at the place and time the crime was committed sufficiently justifies the acquittal of the defendant if the jury determines that there was a commission of the crime charged. The instructions from the defendant declared a defense of the alibi legitimate. In essence, the testimonies represented a claim about absence of the defendant at the crime scene on the evening the robbery was committed.
The claim of the appellant that the court gave alibi instructions emphasizes the fact the defense must be carefully scrutinized. The testimony lacks merit because the court is admonished on a mere reading of given instructions. The defendant should have been acquitted if the jury carefully considered evidence. The instructions, as read in their entirety, were just and fair to the defendant.
References
Haddad, A. (2016). Cruel timing: Retroactive application of state criminal procedural rules to direct appeals. Columbia Law Review, 116(5), 1259-1297.
Ledvora, B. (2020). California’s proposition 47 and effectuating State laws in federal sentencing. The University of Chicago Law Review, 87(7), 1799-1844.
Simonson, J. (2019). The place of “the people” in criminal procedure. Columbia Law Review, 119(1), 249-308.
Tyler, C. (2020). The adjudicative model of precedent. The University of Chicago Law Review, 87(6), 1551-1604.