People v. Lee Yune Chong

McFarland, J. The appellant was accused of the crime of murder, and the jury returned the following verdict: “We, the jury, find the defendant guilty, and fix the penalty at imprisonment for life.” This verdict was declared and duly recorded, and the jurors were discharged for the term, and left the court-room. Most of them went downstairs to the clerk’s office to get warrants for their pay as jurors. Three or four of them went, by mistake, to the sheriff’s office, on a still lower floor, where there was a conversation with a third party, who spoke approvingly of the verdict. In the clerk’s office there was a controversy with the clerk about one day’s pay, which occupied considerable time. A number of spectators mingled with the jurors as they went away from the court-room, and the jurors considered themselves finally discharged and free to talk about the case. Several of them did have conversations with different persons, who approved the verdict, and among others, ■with one of the attorneys for the prosecution.

After the jury has thus been discharged, the presiding judge, after having disposed of some other business, left the bench and went towards, or into, his chambers. He then returned, and ordered the jury called back into the jury-box, and told the clerk to make the following order: “ That the order discharging the jury in the case of People v. Lee Yune Chong be set aside and vacated, and also the order directing the verdict to be re[384]corded be also set aside and vacated, and call the jury.” The appellant was in court, and also his counsel, who had been notified to appear; and the latter objected and excepted to the order, saying that they were there only to protest against the action of the court in calling the jury back. The persons who had been jurors in the case were again brought together in the court-room, and the court instructed them that their verdict was informal, and that they must amend it by finding the degree of the crime, etc. They then retired, and returned the following paper: “ We, the jury, find the defendant guilty of murder in the first degree, and fix the penalty imprisonment for life.” Appellant’s counsel objected to all these proceedings, and excepted to the overruling of their objections, and moved for the discharge of the appellant, and excepted to the denial of said motion. The exact time which elapsed from the discharge of the jury until their return does not appear, one of the witnesses putting it from five to ten minutes; but it is clear that during that time they were beyond the control of the court, had thrown off their characters as jurors, and had mingled with their fellow-citizens, free from any official obligation.