People v. Burcham

1 Citing case

  1. People v. Di Giacomo

    193 Cal.App.2d 688 (Cal. Ct. App. 1961)   Cited 32 times
    In People v. Di Giacomo (1961) 193 Cal.App.2d 688, 699 [ 14 Cal.Rptr. 574], the reviewing court held that the court's giving both an instruction that the falsity of the defendant's statement must be proved by direct, rather than circumstantial evidence, and then instructing in wording similar to CALJIC No. 2.00 was contradictory and confusing.

    [9] Evidence which merely establishes facts from which the falsity of an alleged perjured statement may or may not be inferred does not meet the requirement of the direct evidence rule applicable to perjury cases. ( People v. Maxwell, supra, 118 Cal. 50, 54; People v. O'Donnell, supra, 132 Cal.App.2d 840, 846-849; People v. Burcham, supra, 69 Cal.App. 614, 616-619; People v. Burcham, 62 Cal.App. 649, 656 [ 217 P. 558].) [8b] In the case at bar the testimony just related was supplemented by that of three handwriting experts who testified that, in their opinion, the defendant wrote the questioned endorsement "Rita Burney"; based their opinions upon a comparison of this endorsement with the handwriting exemplars of the defendant which were admitted in evidence; and detailed their reasons therefor, pointing out areas of similarity between the endorsement signature and the handwriting exemplars.