People v. Quock Wong

Defendant was convicted of the crime of pandering, a violation of chapter 14 of the Statutes of 1911, page 9, Deering’s General Laws, Act No. 1906, now section 266i of the Penal Code.

(1) One of his assignments of error is the admission of evidence of similar crimes.

The events in suit took place at a hotel operated by the defendant. Two police officers testified that this hotel has a reputation as a house of prostitution. That testimony bore directly upon one of the issues in the case, the question whether this was a “house of prostitution.’’ The statute defines a panderer as one who procures a female inmate for a “house of prostitution” or who induces, persuades or encourages a female person to become an inmate of a “house of prostitution” or who procures for such a person a place as an inmate of a “house of prostitution” or of any place in which “prostitution is encouraged or allowed.” Evidence of reputation is proper on such an issue. (People v. De Martini, 25 Cal.App. 9, 10-11 [ 142 P. 898 ]; People v. Bushy, 40 Cal.App.2d 193, 199 [ 104 P.2d 531 ].)

Upon cross-examination of one of the officers who testified concerning such reputation, defendant developed the fact that…