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218 Pa. 7

Commonwealth v. Valverdi

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania

Decided April 22, 1907

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania · decided 1907-04-22

<p>Criminal law — Election law — Conspiracy—Assessors—Evidence.</p> <p>On the trial of an indictment of election assessors for the illegal registration of persons not resident in the district and not qualified voters therein, the commonwealth may, after having established by competent evidence the offense charged in the indictment, show that the defendants also procured to be placed upon the list of voters a large number of persons who were not naturalized and therefore not qualified to vote. For the purpose of throwing light upon the motives and intentions of the defendants, it is competent for the commonwealth to prove all that the latter did at the time of the offense charged in the indictment, in dealing with the same subject-matter, and which contributed to the same specific purpose.</p> <p>Criminal law — New trial — Jurors—Reading of newspapers.</p> <p>The granting or refusing of a new trial in a criminal case, upon the ground that during the trial jurors have heard improper oral or have read unauthorized statements concerning the case, is a matter within the discretion of the court below, and the conclusion of that court will only be reversed where there is a clear abuse of discretion; and this is particularly so where the publication was merely a correct narration of the incidents of the trial, and did not refer to any previous misconduct of the defendants.</p> <p>Criminal law — Conspiracy—Parties—Acquittal of one party.</p> <p>It is not necessary for the commonwealth on the trial of an indictment for conspiracy to establish that all the persons charged in the indictment had been guilty of an unlawful conspiracy; if the evidence establishes that any two have been guilty of the conspiracy charge, they may be convicted although all the others are acquitted.</p> <p>Mitchell, C. J., dissents.</p>

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Affirmed · Decided 1907-04-22

How this case has been cited

Cited by 24 later decisions — most recently July 1977

22 state decisions

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Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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Mitchell, C. J.,

¶1dissenting :

¶2Guilty or innocent the appellants were entitled to a fair trial according to law, and that they did not get.

¶3They were indicted for one offense, and convicted on evidence of another. The indictment charged conspiracy to put on the registry of voters names of persons who did not reside in the election district; the evidence ivas that the persons whose names were put on the list did reside in the district, but for want of naturalization or other reasons were not entitled to vote. Both were grave crimes, alike in that they were offenses against the election laws, and would affect the purity of the ballot. But they were not the same, either legally or in fact, and evidence of one was in no sense proof of the other.

¶4The admission of much of the testimony is attempted to be justified on the ground that the commission of similar offenses is competent to show motive and intention as to the offense charged. This principle, dangerous at all times, admissible only as an adjunct and collateral fact, and requiring the strictest judicial control, cannot justify making such evidence the main body of the proof offered as was done here. And especially in a case like the present where the jury were liable *16to allow indignation at the offense charged to becloud the crucial question of proof of the guilt of the alleged offender.

¶5Secondly, even if the incompetent evidence had not been received, the proper exercise of judicial discretion should have sustained the motion to withdraw a juror on account of the outrageous comments of the newspapers, which went directly into the jury box during the trial. The public mind, already inflamed on the subject, was directed particularly to these parties and the fact harped upon that others indicted with them had pleaded guilty, but these “ elected to take a chance of getting off, and stood trial.” The jurors were warned what the public expected of them, and at least one was assailed by name and threatened with the consequences to himself that would follow an acquittal.

¶6A verdict rendered under such compulsion is not what the impartial administration of justice requires.

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