147 F. 594 | D. Del. | 1906
(charging jury). The indictment in this case charges Lucia Giuliani alias Lucia Marasso, the defendant, with violating the provisions of section 3 of the act of Congress of March 3, 1903, c. 1012, 32 Stat. 1214 [U. S. Comp. St. Supp. 1905, p. 276], entitled “An Act to regulate the immigration of aliens into the United States.” That section provides that “the importation into the United .States of any woman or girl for the purposes of prostitution is hereby forbidden, and whoever shall import or attempt to import any woman or girl into the United States for the purposes of prostitution, or shall hold-or attempt to hold, any woman or girl for such purposes in pursuance of such illegal importation, shall be deemed guilty of a felony, and, on conviction thereof,” shall be punished as therein provided. The indictment as found by the" grand jury originally contained three counts. The first count has been abandoned by the government and there are, therefore, only the second and third counts for your consideration. The second count charges, in substance, that the defendant and one Gesuele De Loreto having on or about the fourteenth day of December, 1905, illegally imported into the port of New York in the state of New York on the steamship Prinz Adalbert from the city of Naples in the Kingdom of Italy a woman of the name of Rosa Caliendo alias Rosa Caliento for the purposes of prostitution, the defendant; in pursuance of such illegal importation did on December Id, 1905, and thereafter on divers other days until January 19, 3906, in the district of Delaware, feloniously hold the said Rosa Caliendo at and in the premises Nos. 216 and 218 East Second Street, in this city, for the purposes of prostitution. The. third count is in all respects similar to the second, except that, instead of charging that the defendant feloniously held
There are certain principles of law for your guidance in your deliberations to which it is now the duty of the court to direct your attention. There is a conclusive presumption of law founded on the clearest principles of public policy that persons of sound and mature mind have knowledge of the criminal laws of the government under which they live and are responsible for their violation; and the law presumes, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, that all persons are of sound mind. The law presumes that persons charged with crime are innocent until they arc proved by competent evidence to be guilty. This presumption is evidence in favor of the defendant and stands as her sufficient protection unless it has been overcome by the evidence in the case, taken as a whole, proving her guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. To justify a verdict of guilty, the evidence in the case as a whole must be such as to exclude every reasonable hypothesis but that of the guilt of the defendant as charged in both or cither of the counts of the indictment remaining open for your consideration; and from this it, of course, follows that if the jury find that all the evidence in the case when taken together is as compatible with the theory of innocence as with the theory of guilt there should be an acquittal. The commission of a criminal offense can be proved by circumstantial evidence as well as by direct evidence, provided the circumstances proved, together with all reasonable inferences drawn from them, are such as to leave no reasonable doubt in the minds of the jury that the defendant is guilty. You are to take into consideration all the evidence in this case, both direct and circumstantial. documentary and oral, together with all reasonable inferences to be. drawn from that evidence, in arriving at a conclusion. A reasonable doubt is a doubt based on reason, and which is reasonable in view of all.the evidence. It is not a whimsical, arbitrary or purely speculative doubt, nor a mere conjecture or guess. If after an impartial comparison and consideration of the evidence you can candidly say that you are not satisfied of the defendant’s guilt, you have a reasonable doubt, but if,-after such impartial comparison and consideration of a-11 the evidence you can truthfully say that you have a fixed conviction of the defendant’s guilt, such as you would be willing to act upon in the more weighty and important matters relating to your own affairs, you have no reasonable doubt, and in
The law permits the defendant at her own request to testify in her own behalf. The defendant here has availed herself of this right. Her testimony is before you and you must determine how far it is credible. The deep personal interest which she has in "the result" of this case should be considered by you in weighing her evidence and in determining how far or to what extent, if at all, ■it is worthy of credit. In considering the credibility of or weighc which you should attach to the testimony of the defendant, you should regard, among other things, the inherent probability or improbability of her statements, and to what extent she has been corroborated or contradicted by other evidence in the case whether documentary or oral. Where a witness has a direct personal interest in the result of a case, especially of a criminal case, the temptation is strong to color, pervert or withhold the facts.
Gesuele De Loreto appears from his testimony to have co-operated with the defendant in the alleged illegal holding of Rosa Caliendo for the purposes of prostitution as well as in the importation of Rosa Caliendo from Naples to the United States. He should, therefore, be treated as an accomplice so far as his credibility as a witness is concerned. While the testimony of an accomplice should always be received with caution and weighed and scrutinized with great care by the jury, the accomplice is nevertheless a competent witness, and the degree of credit which should be given to the testimony of an accomplice is a matter exclusively within the province of the jury. While the jury as a matter of law may convict a person accused of a grave crime upon the uncorroborated testimony of an accomplice, it is, however, usual for the court to advise the jury against a conviction unless the testimony of the accomplice has been corroborated by competent evidence in some material part. The corroboration need not extend to all matters testified to by the accomplice, but it being shown that the accomplice has testified truly in some material parts it may be inferred by the jury that he has in others. In this case you are to determine upon the evidence, documentary as well as oral, whether Gesuele De Loreto has or has not been corroborated with respect to material parts of his testimony by the documentary evidence and the testimony of a number of witnesses, including Rosa Caliendo, Pasquale Frallicciardi and also several others who testified they were frequenters of the premises in question and had heard certain statements or declarations made by the defendant, which you will doubtless recall. You' are also to determine whether or not Gesuele De Loreto has been successfully contradicted with respect to any material portion of his testimony. And, of course, if you believe that Pasquale Frallicciardi was also an accomplice the above remarks would apply to him. I may further add that if the testimony of Rosa Caliendo and Pasquale Frallicciardi stood wholly uncorroborated, directly or circumstantially, this court would deem it its duty to advise the
In a criminal prosecution where the oral testimony is more or less conflicting and especially in a case like this where two of the witnesses for the government in their examination at the preliminary hearing before the commissioner made statements varying on material points from their testimony given before you, it is of much importance for the-purpose of enabling you to determine whether greater weight should or should not be given to their evidence before the commissioner than to their testimony before you, that you should take into consideration those facts which are admitted or established by uncontradicted evidence, together with all reasonable inferences or deductions therefrom, and that in the light of such facts and inferences and of the documentary evidence before you, you should weigh the probability or improbability of the truthfulness of the oral testimony submitted to you, in order to reach a result satisfactory to your minds. By such a process you will be the better enabled, not only to determine whether the evidence of the two witnesses given before you is or is not entitled to greater credence than that given by them before the commissioner, but also to reach a just verdict. And you will give to their explanation before you of such discrepancy such weight as you shall consider it entitled to.
I shall now advert to some of the evidence, at the same time reminding you that what .1 shall say with respect to it is not in the least binding upon you; and that there is not the slightest intention on the part of the court to usurp j-our function as a jury to pass upon the facts, but only to assist you in reaching a just conclusion. It is admitted by the defendant that she 1ms for many years and in - different places kept establishments in which prostitution has been practiced. There is uncontradictcd evidence to the effect that Rosa Caliendo for years before her importation into the United States was a common prostitute in Italy, and that she was imported on the steamship Prinz Adalbert from Naples to the port of New York, arriving at the latter place December 14, f9i),x It further appears from the uncontradictcd evidence that the defendant went from Wilmington to New York a day or two prior to the arrival of the steamship in order to receive Rosa Caliendo; that upon the arrival of the steamship the defendant conducted or accompanied Rosa Caliendo to the premises of the defendant in this city. There is further uncontradicted evidence that a passage, ticket was procured and paid for in this city for the transportation of Rosa Caliendo, although there is a conflict in the evidence on whose account such importation was had. It further appears from uncontradictcd evidence, including that of the defendant, that within two days after
“Q. I)o you recall about the third week after liosa came she had done something to displease you? A. Yes, she was making too much noise; she was hugging anil kissing tiie customers there and she was a regular crazy person and I told her she had better go to her brother. Q. You told, her to leave? A. Yes, I wanted 1o send lior away. Q. Did she go? A. No, she didn’t go away because she had to finish to pay Gesuele and then we were arrested.”
A pertinent inquiry* may he, how was she to pay Gesuele unless out of her proceeds of prostitution, which, so far as is to be gathered from the evidence, was her only source of revenue? And further, wlw did the defendant take such an interest in her paying Gesuele unless she. the defendant, was under some obligation to Gesuele on account of which the money to be paid by Rosa Caliendo was to he
I desire to repeat that you are in no respect bound by any references made by the court to the evidence' in this case, nor by any inferences by the court from the evidence, express or implied, excepting in so far as th.ey commend themselves to your own independent judgment. It is your duty to consider the evidence in the case, oral and documentary, as a whole, and not to give undue importance to minor points or portions of the evidence taken piece-meal. A criminal case involving much testimony and many facts should* not be decided upon the probability or improbability of any one point singled out of the evidence,.but a proper decision requires due consideration to be given to all the evidence, direct and circumstantial, in the case.
You are the sole judges of the credibility of witnesses, their demeanor, their relation to' the respective parties, the weight to be given to their testimony, and the weight and effect of the evidence, whether oral or documentary, and in the exercise of 3>-our judgment you may accept as true or reject as false in whole or in part the testimony of the defendant or any other witness. While it is the exclusive function of the court to present to you the principles of law applicable to the case, it is your exclusive function to pass upon the facts and the evidence and reach a conclusion, subject to the principles of law as presented by the court. The court has been requested to give 3'ou instructions on a number of points of law in the language employed by the counsel for the defendant. The charge of