State v. Gottfreedson

Citations

• 24 Wash. 398
• 64 P. 523
• 1901 Wash. LEXIS 545

Syllabus

<p>CRIMINAL LAW-SUFFICIENCY OF INFORMATION-DATE OF OFFENSE. >•</p> <p>The failure to allege the exact date of the commission of a crime is not ground of demurrer against an information, where a date within the statute of limitations is alleged’ as the time of its commission.</p> <p>SAME-DEFENDANT AS WITNESS-FORMER CONVICTION.</p> <p>In a prosecution for horse stealing, it is error to compel defendant, who had offered himself as a witness, to testify that he had once before been convicted of horse stealing, since the tendency of such testimony would be to prejudice the jury, and the demands of the statute permitting conviction of a crime to be shown to affect the credibility of a person offered as a witness are met by proof of the conviction, without unnecessary parade before the jury that defendant had at one time been guilty of the exact crime for which he is at the time on trial.</p> <p>SAME-EVIDENCE-SIMILAR OFFENSE.</p> <p>In a prosecution of defendant for horse stealing, it is error to admit testimony showing that he had stolen another horse at about the same time with the one for whose theft he was standing trial, where the two transactions are not so woven together as to constitute interdependent crimes, but the sole effect of the testimony would be to establish the bad character' of defendant and prejudice the jury against him.</p>