Donaldson

The plaintiff in error was convicted on two counts of an indictment charging him and one Henry Gallagher with a conspiracy, as well as with the actual participation in the act of unlawfully receiving, concealing, and facilitating the transportation and concealment, after importation, of certain opium known by them to have been imported into the United States contrary to law.

It is assigned as error that the trial court overruled the objection of the plaintiff in error to questions propounded to the witness Powers by the district attorney as follows:

To understand the relevancy of this testimony, it is necessary to review briefly the evidence in the case. Powers, who was testifying at the time, had been indicted and convicted and had served his sentence in jail for his complicity in removing the opium which it was charged that the plaintiff in error had conspired with Gallagher to import unlawfully. He testified that the plaintiff in error approached him and finally induced him to lend his aid in disposing of opium which was then on board the steamship Siberia in the San Francisco harbor, and that thereafter the plaintiff in error took him to the Siberia and introduced him to…