Page:North Dakota Reports (vol. 3).pdf/349

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STATE v. MC GAHEY.
309

is urged as error. The able counsel does not contend that it was improper to ask the witness on cross-examination as to her criminal relations with men generally as affecting her credit, but urges that such object could be equally well attained without specifically naming McGahey, and that the necessary effect of so naming him must have been to prejudice the jury against him. Admitting counsel's conclusion, we are still of opinion that the line of cross-examination was proper. The state has the right to show the relations existing between the witness and the party at whose instance, and presumably in whose interest, she was testifying. It had the right to expose to the jury every motive and desire of the witness that might naturally and reasonably be supposed to produce that bias that would effect the character of her testimony. 1 Greenl. Ev. 450, note; Cameron v. Montgomery, 13 Serg. & R. 128; Batdorff v. Bank, 61 Pa. St. 179; State v. Bacon, 13 Or. 143, 9 Pac. Rep. 393.

Some errors pertaining to the charge of the court are argued in the brief of the counsel for plaintiff in error, but an examination of the abstract, amended as stipulated at the oral argument, shows that no exceptions to the action of the court in this matter were saved except in one instance, and that pertains to the refusal of the court to give an instruction requested relative to the law of self-defense. We see no objection to the instruction asked, and it was applicable to the case, but its refusal was not error. It is true that a general charge will not always cure the error in rejecting a specific instruction. Elliott, App. Proc. § 706, and cases cited in note. But in this case the charge of the court covered every point in the instruction refused as specifically and as favorably to plaintiff in error as did the rejected instruction; hence its rejection was not error. Thomp. Trials, § 2352, and cases cited in note. We have noticed all the points argued, and, finding no error in the record, the judgment of the trial court must be affirmed. All concur.

(55 N. W. Rep. 753.)