Opinion
The defendant was indicted in the county of Tuolumne for stealing a horse. The horse was stolen in Mariposa county, and taken into Tuolumne county, where the defendant was arrested. On the trial, Mallet, the prosecuting witness, was asked, for the purpose of impeaching his testimony, if he did not testify differently before the committing magistrate from what he then did. The Court, on the objection of the District Attorney, refused to allow the question to be put.
The defendant was convicted and sentenced, and appealed.
COUNSEL:
Edwin A. Rodgers, for Appellant.
Attorney-General, for the People.
JUDGES: Sanderson, J.
OPINION
SANDERSON, Judge
The Court below erred in not permitting counsel for the defendant to examine the prosecutor Mallet on cross-examination as to whether his testimony before the committing magistrate was the same as at the trial. It is never irrelevant to inquire of a witness whether he has not on some former occasion given a different account of the matter, for the purpose of impeaching his testimony by contradicting him. (1 Greenl. on Ev., sec. 449.) It will not do to say that this error was immaterial because Mallet's testimony upon the point in question was corroborated by other witnesses, and that therefore the verdict would have been the same had his testimony been successfully impeached in the mode proposed. We cannot say what effect the successful impeachment of his testimony might have had upon the minds of the jury; and it cannot be held that an error is immaterial unless it be made to appear beyond all controversy that it could have had no effect whatever upon the verdict prejudicial to the defendant.
The point made on the motion to arrest the judgment is answered by the ninety-second section of the Criminal Practice Act, which provides that when property has been feloniously taken in one county and brought into another, the jurisdiction of the offence shall be in either county.
We do not deem it necessary to notice the other points.
Judgment reversed, and new trial ordered.