Tubins v. District of Columbia

Citations

• 21 App. D.C. 267
• 1903 U.S. App. LEXIS 5480

Syllabus

<p>Practice; Police Court; Appellate Practice; Evidence; Opinions; Pierce and Dangerous Dogs, Keeping oe.</p> <p>1. The proper time to give notice of intention to apply to this court for a writ of error in a case tried in the police court of this District, is when the first exception is taken; but it is not necessary to repeat the notice with every exception taken. 2. In a prosecution for keeping a fierce and dangerous dog, knowing it to be such, the testimony of a witness for the prosecution, as to a complaint made by him to a policeman after witnessing an attack made by the dog on a-boy, with a view of having the matter communicated by the policeman to the owner of the dog, which communication is thereafter shown to have been made by the officer, is admissible.</p> <p>3. Where no assignments of error are based on exceptions reserved and shown by the record, such exceptions need not be considered.</p> <p>4. A question propounded the accused in his own behalf in a prosecution for keeping a fierce and dangerous dog knowing it to be such, as to whether he had ever had any difficulty in distinguishing his 'own dog from another in the neighborhood, the purpose being to show that the witnesses for the prosecution might have been mistaken as to the identity of the animal calls merely for the expression of an opinion and is irrelevant and inadmissible, although he might properly have been allowed to testify as to the similarity of the two animals.</p> <p>5. Where the record on a writ of error to the police court does not purport to contain all the evidence, in strictness, an assignment of error by the plaintiff in error based upon a refusal of that court to find for him on all the evidence, need not be considered.</p> <p>6. In a prosecution for keeping a fierce and dangerous dog, knowing it to he such, the scienter must be alleged and proved, hut the knowledge required to be proved is not knowledge of any alleged attacks made by the animal, but knowledge that the animal is