Richards

The defendant was charged with the crime of murder and convicted of manslaughter. He made a motion for a new trial, which was denied, and this appeal is from the judgment and the order denying said motion.

I. It is contended that it was error for the court to permit the prosecution to ask the witness Selvaggo several questions in cross-examination tending to show that he spent most of his time in lounging and loafing in and around saloons and dance-halls.

The witness had testified on direct examination that he was in the habit of sitting around the saloon where the homicide occurred a great deal of the time; that he had been arrested upon a charge of vagrancy, as being an idle and dissolute person roaming around the streets. The cross-examination did not bring out any facts that would more strongly tend to discredit the witness than the. facts he had already testified to on direct examination. It is always the safer and more dignified course for the prosecution to refrain from asking questions in cross-examination that are insulting or that tend merely to degrade the witness. But a case will not be reversed because of error in allowing such questions where it is apparent that no…