State v. Norris

Citations

• 27 Wash. 453
• 67 P. 983
• 1902 Wash. LEXIS 412

Syllabus

<p>CRIMINAL LAW-EVIDENCE TENDING TO PROVE OTHER CRIMES-ADMISSIBILITY.</p> <p>In the prosecution for one crime, evidence showing the complicity of the accused in the commission of a second crime is admissible, where the testimony in relation to the second crime involves facts necessary to he shown in establishing the charge for which the accused is on trial.</p> <p>BURGLARY-CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE-SUFFICIENCY.</p> <p>The refusal of the court to direct a verdict of not guilty was not error, when the evidence showed that the accused when arrested were in the company of others who admitted committing the burglary charged; that they had all been seen together on the evening of the burglary just outside the town where the' crime was committed; that the property taken was found in their possession; that a house occupied by Japanese, situated between the place of the burglary and the point where the accused were arrested, was visited the same night by four or five men and burglarized, some of the stolen property being in the possession of the party when arrested, and that the party of burglars went from the Japanese house in the direction in which the accused were afterwards found with the others at the time of arrest. The fact that one of the accused who had entered a plea of guilty testified that the crime was committed by two alone who pleaded guilty was merely for the jury to weigh in connection with the other circumstances shown.</p> <p>HARMLESS ERROR' — OPINION EVIDENCE.</p> <p>Allowing a witness to testify that the accused did not seem to show any curiosity to find out what he was arrested for, while technically erroneous as a statement of the witness’s conclusion, was not prejudicial error.</p>