People v. Storke

Citations

• 6 Cal. Unrep. 405
• 60 P. 420
• 1900 Cal. LEXIS 1087

Syllabus

<p>Libel—Witness—Impeachment.—Where a Witness in a prosecution for libel testified that he gained access to defendant’s room by climbing through a transom over the door, the testimony of one who had charge of the room and the keys thereof, as to whether or not anyone ever applied to him for access to the room, was incompetent to impeach the former witness.</p> <p>Libel—Impeachment of Witness.—Where a Witness, on cross-examination in a prosecution for libel, testified that he went to a certain town and inquired of M. who the woman in the town was who would have been likely to have written the letters complained of as libelous, and M. answered that he knew of but one woman, testimony of M. that he did not make the statement ascribed to him by witness is inadmissible to impeach the latter, as such statement related to an immaterial and collateral matter.</p> <p>Libel—Opinion Evidence.—In a Prosecution for libel, evidence that a witness knew that the defendant was innocent, and that she did not write the letter complained of, is incompetent, as mere opinion.</p> <p>Libel—Specimens of Handwriting.—In a Prosecution for libel, it is not error to strike out and refuse to submit to the jury specimens of the handwriting of a person other than defendant, who has admitted his authorship of the writing stricken out, where an expert has testified that the writing in the libelous article does not resemble such writings, and there is no evidence to connect the author thereof with the writing of the libelous matter.</p> <p>Libel.—Where Testimony of Experts in Regard to the Authorship of a libelous letter was introduced in a criminal prosecution, it was not error to refuse to instruct that the testimony of experts should be received and weighed with great caution, and that the evidence of a witness who is brought on the stand to support a theory by his opinion is testimony exposed to a reasonable degree of suspicion, which there is great reason to believe is in many instances the res