People v. Von Moltke

YORK, J.

The principal question raised by appellant in this matter is that the jury was allowed to separate, after they had been partially instructed by the trial judge. The record discloses the fact that, after the arguments in the case had been concluded, and the' judge had started to instruct the jury and had given several instructions, the matter was continued, with the usual admonition, until the next day; that on the next day the trial judge proceeded to complete his instructions to the jury, and the matter was then submitted to the jury for decision.

The appellant evidently contends that the matter was submitted to the jury upon the completion of the arguments of counsel, or at least when the trial judge started to instruct the jury as to the law. This is not the fact. A ease is not submitted to the jury for decision until a judge has completed his instructions. The jury is not entitled to discuss the matter with anyone, not even among themselves, until after the instructions have been given them in full. It is a matter within the discretion of the trial judge as to whether or not the jury shall separate until the submission of the case to the jury for its decision. It is necessarily left to the trial judge to determine whether or not he will allow the jury to separate after the cause is once begun. There may be some facts connected with some cases, which may make it necessary to hold a jury together and not allow them to separate under any circumstance, but there is nothing' in the record in this case, which shows any such special circumstance or which shows an abuse of discretion by the trial judge. Therefore, we find no error committed by the trial court in this point, as raised.

Most of the other points raised by appellant are questions of conflict of evidence or of insufficiency of the evidence. The question as to conflict, of course, cannot be considered by this court, excepting in so far as any error committed by the court might be more prejudicial, in case of evidence in favor of the prevailing party being weak. There was sufficient evidence to justify the judgment of conviction.

[571]

The instructions given by the court were sufficient and properly covered the law of the case. Buie of Court YIIl is violated by appellant in raising the questions as to instructions refused, without printing in his brief “all instructions given, bearing upon the subjects covered by the refused instructions”. Therefore, although we have examined the instructions with care, we have not discussed in detail the objections to the refused instructions. The refusal of the court to give certain instructions, referred to in appellant's brief only by number and page of the clerk’s transcript, did not constitute prejudicial error.