Fitzpatrick

Defendants were charged jointly with the crime of bribery, in that defendants Fitzpatrick and Downs received and agreed to receive from one William C. Hodges a bribe for the purpose of influencing their action as members of the city council of the city of Los Angeles in a certain matter pending before that body and in that defendant Murphy aided and abetted his codefendants in the commission of the offense. Murphy was acquitted and Fitzpatrick and Downs were convicted. The two latter defendants appealed from the judgment of conviction and from an order of the trial court denying their motion for a new trial, but the appeal of Fitzpatrick was later dismissed.

It was the theory of the prosecution that Murphy was a go-between whose office in the commission of the crime was in bringing Hodges into direct communication with Fitzpatrick and Downs. Hodges testified to a conversation that he had with Murphy in a downtown office building, the evidence thus given being damaging not alone to Murphy but to his codefendants as well. Hodges also testified that one J. Howard Murphy was concealed in a closet opening from the room in which he had the conversation with defendant Murphy during the…