Volume 10 — New York Criminal Reports

<p>Homi cide—Indictment.</p> <p>When a party jointly indicted with another for an offense, charged to have been the result of their joint act, is tried separately, either upon his own election, or otherwise, the indictment is well supported by proof sufficient to warrant a conviction if the party on trial had been indicted for the offense alone.</p>

<p>■¡Criminal law—Bar.</p> <p>An acquittal, under an indictment for selling liquor after a certain date is no bar to an indictment for a sale prior to such date.</p> <p>Appeal from judgment of the supreme court, general term, ¡second department, affirming conviction of defendant for violation of the excise law.</p>

<p>1. Trial—Jury.</p> <p>The fact that a juror in a trial for murder who was rejectee? because he had a fixed opinion as to the guilt or innocence of the defendant, which would influence his conduct, had not been cross-examined by defendant’s counsel is no ground for reversal, where such right did not appear to have been asserted or denied.</p> <p>2. Same.</p> <p>The rejection of a juror because he has conscientious scruples-against rendering a verdict of guilty in a capital case, is no error.</p> <p>3. Criminal law—Indictment.</p> <p>Where an indictment names the town and county in which the-crime is charged to have been committed, but the proof fails to show that such town is -in the county named, the court will take-judicial notice of that fact.</p>

<p>Trial—Charge.</p> <p>' The reading to the jury by the judge, in his charge in a criminal case, of extracts from a reported ease, laying down legal principles, which he had a right to declare and. which were correctly stated, furnishes no ground for an exception.</p>

'Appeal from judgment of Monroe county oyer and terminer ■convicting defendant of the crime of murder in the first degree.

■Appeal from judgment of the supreme court, general term, fourth department, affirming judgment of conviction of the crime of grand larceny in the J efferson county court of sessions and affirming an order of that court denying a motion on the minutes for a new trial.

<p>Witness—Defendant.</p> <p>Where the defendant, in a criminal action, offers himself as a witness, he is subject to the same rules of examination as apply to other witnesses.</p>

<p>[Appeal from judgment of the Orange county oyer and terminer, convicting def endant of the crime of murder.</p>

<p>Appeal from judgment of the Niagara oyer and terminer, convicting defendant of murder in the first degree,</p>

<p>Evidence—Circumstantial.</p> <p>The evidence, in this case, though circumstantial, was held to be of the most satisfactory and conclusive character and to demon-strata to a moral certainty that the crime charged in the indictment was committed'and that the defendant was the author of it.</p>

■ ’Appeal from judgment of the New York oyer and terminer, convicting defendant of the crime of murder in the first de» gree.

<p>¡Motion for reargument of appeal.</p>

<p>1. Trial—Jury—Competency.</p> <p>In order to establish the competency of a juror, it is not necessary that he, in his examination, should swear in the very words of the statute. So held, where a juror has read of the transaction and formed an opinion but states that he thinks that he can render an impartial verdict according to the evidence.</p> <p>2. Homicide—Proof.</p> <p>A verdict of guilty of murder in the first degree was held, in this case, to be fully justified by the evidence.</p>

<p>1. Appeal—Court of appeals.</p> <p>In a capital case, the presence oí an exception is not essential in support of an appeal by the defendant. The duty is imposed by statute upon the court of appeals in such cases to order a new trial, whether any exception shall have been taken or not in the court below, if considerations of justice, based upon the presence in the record of errors prejudicial to the substantial rights of the accused, demand it.</p> <p>2. Same—Charge.</p> <p>Where a request to charge is, in substance and in spirit, amply I covered by the language of the main charge, it is properly refused.</p> <p>3. Same.</p> <p>It is essential to the correctness of a charge that it should be clear in its definitions of the prisoner’s legal rights, and that it should not tend to mislead the jury upon the rules of law which should govern them in their deliberation upon the evidence.</p> <p>Evidence—Homicide.</p> <p>The admission of testimony as to the defendant stabbing a companion of the deceased which occurred after the ofíense of which the defendant stood indicted, is no error, where it occurs in the same afíray in which the deceased was killed, and is sufficiently connected with the killing of the deceased, as an incident, to make it admissible.</p>

<p>Evidence’—'Confessions.</p> <p>Where, upon conviction of the defendant of the crime of arson, upon proof of the burning of the building and her confessions, the evidence as to whether the confessions were voluntary is conflicting, the defendant testifying that they wez-e induced by thz-eats and those to whom they were made testifying that there were no threats used, it is to be presumed that the jury found the confessions to have been voluntaz-ily made, and the vez-dict, under such circumstances, will not be disturbed.</p>

<p>1. Homicide—Proof.</p> <p>The act, in this case, was held to have been too 'deliberate to bring the case down to murder in the second degree, or to any of the degrees of manslaughter, and the plea of insanity to have been without evidence to support it.</p> <p>2. Same—Charge—Insanity.</p> <p>Where the whole case is barren of evidence upon which to base a claim that the defendant was insane when the act was committed, no harm is suffered by defendant from a charge that “the insanity the law speaks of is that which comes by physical visitation of God, it is something that makes the man helpless, so that in killing a person he acts as though unconscious, with inability to control himself, as though the subject were struck by lightning.”</p> <p>3. Same.</p> <p>A charge that, “if there is any such thing as insanity produced by jealousy or revenge, or wrath, then, so far as affecting the prisoner, it is the same as any other insanity,” is proper.</p> <p>4. Same.</p> <p>The heat of passion and feeling, produced by motives of anger, hatred or revenge, is not insanity.</p>

<p>Homicide—Murder in first degree.</p> <p>The facts, in this case, were held to make out a clear case of murder in the first degree.</p>

Defendant was originally sentenced to the Queen® county penitentiary tor which the court of sessions substituted imprisonment in the county jail.

<p>■Homicide—Proof.</p> <p>The story of the defendant, in this case, was held to be incredible and the evidence to justify the jury in convicting defendant of murder in the first degree.</p>