People v. Lyle

McKEE, J. Appeal from an order denying a motion for a new trial, and from a judgment of conviction of murder in the second degree. The motion was made upon statutory grounds, but the case itself has been argued and submitted mainly upon one of them, namely, misconduct of the jury by which a fair and due consideration of the case was prevented. The alleged misconduct consisted of certain acts committed during the progress of the trial by the district attorney, his associate counsel, and some of the jurors. The acts were: That during the trial the district attorney, at his expense, treated some of the jurors to intoxicating liquors; that he presented one of them with a bottle of bitters, entertained him at his house with a dinner, and after dinner escorted him homeward; and that during the trial he and his associate counsel, at their expense, entertained the same juror and also a witness in the case at an oyster supper at which liquors were drank.

The affidavits read on the hearing of the motion show: That the trial of the case lasted over a month, commencing on the 10th of December, 1883, and ending, with intermissions, on the 11th of January, 1884; that at each adjournment the jury were allowed to separate under the instructions of the court; that during the recesses and adjournments of the court it was the practice of counsel engaged in the trial of the case —as- well those for the defense as those for the prosecution ■—jurors, and witnesses to “interchange courtesies” by treating and drinking with some of the jurors at the bars of saloons. Twice during the progress of the trial the district attorney treated two or three of the jurors. Once he invited, to dinner one of them, who was at his house to get from him a bottle of bitters which he had promised the juror two [395]months before, and on another occasion the same juror took supper with the district attorney and his associate counsel, under circumstances which rendered his invitation to supper unavoidable, except by a violation of the law of social intercourse. The acts of drinking and the entertainments of the juror were all done in the recess or adjournments of the court, and at considerable intervals of time. On none of the occasions does it appear that there was any conversation between juror or jurors and counsel, or any of the persons present, about the case or the trial thereof, or the defendant, or anything in connection therewith. On the contrary, the affidavits clearly show that there was not a word spoken nor the slightest allusion made to the trial, or any of the parties connected with it, at either of the entertainments, or on the occasions of drinking at the bars of saloons. It may be conceded that acts of ordinary and neighborly kindness, or of hospitality, to jurors sitting in the trial of a ease—especially one of a criminal nature—by attorneys engaged in the trial, are “more honored in the breach than the observance.” The exercise of such acts during the progress of such a trial serves to place the parties performing them in a position capable of being injuriously interpreted by those who may be adversely interested in the trial, or who may be watching it from the standpoint of sympathy or feeling with the litigants, and in that way confidence in judicial proceedings may be affected ; but in themselves, unaccompanied by words or circumstances tending to show improper motives, or that a bias might have been created in the minds of any of the jurors which injuriously affected the person against whom the verdict was rendered, they do not justify an inference that the jury were influenced by them in making up their verdict.