Vendetti

This is an appeal by one of several defendants from a judgment of conviction under an indictment charging, in different counts, conspiracy to violate the National Prohibition Act, numerous violations of that act, and prior convictions as to some of the defendants.

The first assignment of error is based on a ruling, of the court excluding certain affidavits offered by the appellant. In the course of the trial, one of the prohibition agents was cross-examined at considerable length in respect to his relations with a number of young girls in the vicinity of Everett, Wash. Apparently the questions thus propounded were based on affidavits in the possession of counsel for the accused, and in the *544 course of the examination the witness declared that these affidavits had been repudiated by the parties by whom they were made. The affidavits were afterwards offered in evidence in rebuttal, with the result already stated. We know of no principle of law or rule of evidence that would justify the admission of such ex parte affidavits. In the first place, an unusual latitude was allowed in the cross-examination of the witness. State v. Belknap, 44 Wash. 605 , 87 P. 934 . But whether the…