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47 Mich. 508

Leland v. Kauth

Michigan Supreme Court

Decided January 18, 1882

Michigan Supreme Court · decided 1882-01-18

<p>Indecent asscmlt — Cross-examination of defendant.</p> <p>In a civil action for an indecent assault it was held proper to cross-examine the defendant as to whether he was ever arrested on a criminal charge made by a woman, and whether he settled it by payment.</p> <p>Where the defendant in a civil action for an indecent assault appears as a witness therein, it is admissible for its bearing on his credibility, to cross-examine him as to the antecedents of his life, if the questions do not call for self-crimination.</p>

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Affirmed · Decided 1882-01-18

How this case has been cited

Cited by 8 later decisions — most recently November 1974

7 state decisions

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Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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Graves, C. J.

¶1The defendant in error brought this action for an indecent assault, and the parties were the main witnesses. In every essential matter they contradicted each other, and the result depended on their comparative credit in the opinion of the jury.

¶2As bearing on Leland’s trustworthiness as a witness, the court allowed him to be asked, on cross-examination, if he was ever arrested on a criminal charge wherein Amelia Rietsman was complainant and whether he settled it by the payment of money. He admitted that he was so arrested some nine years before and that he gave a little money to settle it, and denied that he was guilty.

¶3The permission of these inquiries on the cross-examination is complained of on several grounds, but we think the criticism is not warranted. The jury were required to decide on the value of his testimony tendered in his own behalf and it was competent to call upon him to inform them of such antecedents of his life, not amounting to self-crimination, as would assist them in placing an accurate estimate upon his statements as a witness, and the questions objected to called for nothing more.

¶4There was no error, and the judgment must be affirmed with costs.

The other Justices concurred.
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