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97 Cal. 249

People v. Benoit

California Supreme Court

Decided January 23, 1893

California Supreme Court · decided 1893-01-23

<p>Appeal from a judgment of the Superior Court of San Diego County, and from an order denying a new trial.</p> <p>The facts are stated in the opinion of the court.</p>

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1893-01-23

How this case has been cited

Cited by 3 later decisions — most recently February 1960

3 state decisions

1018931900191019201930194019501960decided

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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Harrison, J.

¶1The appellant was tried and convicted upon a charge of having committed incest with his daughter, a girl of about fifteen years of age, and sentenced to the state prison for a term of ten years. At the trial the district attorney was permitted, against the objection and exception of the defendant, to show by the testimony of the daughter that about two years prior to the commission of the alleged crime she was living as a prostitute with her mother at a certain house in San Diego, and giving to her father the earnings of her shame.

¶2This testimony was entirely irrelevant and immaterial to the determination of the issue before the court, and its admission was manifest error. Its evident effect was to prejudice the defendant before the jury by attempting to show his turpitude of character; but however base his nature may have been, he was not on trial for any offense except that named in the information, and it was as much error for the prosecution to introduce evidence tending to show his bad character, as it would have been to give evidence of other and distinct crimes that he had committed.

¶3The judgment and order are reversed.

¶4Paterson, J., and Garoutte, J., concurred.

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