People v. Hall

Citation48 Mich. 482,12 N.W. 665
CourtMichigan Supreme Court
Decision Date14 June 1882
PartiesPEOPLE v. HALL.

Where an information merely charges murder, without charging in what way it was committed or in what degree, and the jury were left at liberty to find the degree and did not find it to be murder of the first degree, and the sentence of the court treated it as murder of the first degree, it is error indicating that the trial lacked some of the elements of a calm judicial proceeding.

In cases of homicide the order of proof is essential, and this order requires the corpus delicti to be first shown.

The existence of malice of itself is no proof tending to show that death was caused by a criminal act of the accused, and only when there is legal evidence leading to the belief that homicide has been committed can the motive of the criminal become important and the relations of the parties become relevant.

Where the jury was ordered to be drawn from 11 specified townships out of the 25 townships and the other supervisor districts constituting the county, some of the specified towns separated from the place of trial by intervening tiers of towns, and excluding the entire vicinage of the alleged offence, the order being made on the suggestion of the prosecution for this particular case, such order was not sanctioned by the statute and was illegal.

The allowance of names of witnesses to be added to the information during the trial, where witnesses are known, is a violation of a substantial right of the accused to have notice in season to anticipate their presence before trial.

Preventing witnesses from answering questions as to the conduct of the prosecution in seeking to induce them to suppress testimony or volunteer improper testimony is error.

Questions answered by medical experts upon theories put to them which were contrary to positive and uncontradicted facts were improper and misleading.

A refusal to instruct the jury that no inference can arise against the accused from the silence of a witness was error.

That a witness had been convicted of an infamous crime may be shown as a distinct fact bearing on his credit as a witness.

The reading of medical books to the jury as evidence is not permissible.

Error to Oakland.

Howard & Thayer and Thos. J. Davis, for plaintiff in error.

J.J Van Riper, for the people.

CAMPBELL, J.

Hall brings error from a judgment on conviction for the murder of his wife. The case was twice tried,--first in June, 1881, and afterwards in October, 1881,--the first jury having disagreed. We find in the outset a defect which does not seem to have been noticed by the parties, but which, under our advisory duty in criminal cases under the statute, we cannot very well overlook in passing upon the exceptions. The information which conforms to the statute and is in the usual form merely charges murder, without charging in what way it was committed or in what degree. Under the statute the jury must find the degree of the offence, and it cannot be treated as murder in the first degree unless expressly so found. Murder by poison, under the statute, is always murder in the first degree, and the jury should have been so charged. They were, however, by this charge left at liberty to find the degree, and did not find it to be the first degree. The sentence, however, expressly treated it as murder in the first degree, not only by so naming it, but also by inflicting the statutory punishment for that crime. If this error had been assigned, we might have been compelled to determine to what extent the proceedings could be opened or reversed.

As there are other defects which must lead to a new trial, we need not now go further in this discussion beyond the suggestion that this is only one of several indications that the trial lacked some of the elements of a calm judicial proceeding, and that matters appear to have been lost sight of which the rules governing the administration of justice required those conducting the prosecution to keep in mind. The first of these, and one which in several different ways was brought to the attention of the court below, but ruled against, was the rule which requires the corpus delicti to be shown, before any other testimony is directed against the prisoner. In many and perhaps in most cases the order of proof is not very essential. But in cases of homicide, and in others where justice demands it, the prosecution should not be allowed to proceed further until the death and its character shall have been shown, as far as the testimony can be separately given, and especially so far as can be shown from the post mortem examinations. Under our system of informations the prosecution must always have knowledge, in advance of the trial, concerning the case intended to be made out, and there can be no good reason for pursuing the course which was allowed to be taken here. Instead of showing in the outset the death of Mrs. Hall, the examinations of her remains and their several analyses, and the medical opinions, indicating or not indicating death by poison, the first testimony introduced was for the only and obvious purpose of creating a prejudice against the accused by raising suspicions--which this particular testimony was not legally sufficient to establish--that he had been at some former period intimate with another woman. The testimony did not tend to prove any lack of harmony or kindness between the prisoner and his wife before her death; but had it done so, it was improper to show it until the evidence that she had been poisoned and died from poison had been introduced. All the malice imaginable is no proof in itself tending to show that death was caused by crime. When there is legal evidence leading to the belief that homicide has been committed, the motive of the criminal becomes important, and the relations of parties may therefore become relevant. This difficulty was not confined to the qnestion of the order of proof, for in what was done in charging and in refusing to charge, the jury did not receive that careful instruction which the circumstances called for, against allowing the crime itself to be presumed or to be ascertained by any but distinct and adequate proof.

Before referring to the more definite defects in the proceedings at the trial, some notice must be taken of the preliminary proceedings. We have not sufficient facts before us to render it proper to say whether the venue should have been changed on the showing made, which is not brought up with the record. But the proceedings to summon jurors were, we think, in violation of the jury law of 1877. That law, in order to prevent unfairness or inequality in the distribution of jurors, required names of the jurors from each precinct to be kept in separate parcels, and one name to be drawn from each, before a second name should be drawn from any, and so successively in like manner however many jurors should be drawn. Laws 1877, pp. 113, 114.

There is only one case in which a different rule is permitted. It is provided by section 32 (amending section 600, vol. 1 Comp.Laws) that when grand or petit jurors have not been summoned, or a sufficient number of qualified jurors shall fail to appear, the court may...

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5 cases
  • People v. Erb, Docket No. 15885
    • United States
    • Court of Appeal of Michigan — District of US
    • July 26, 1973
    ... ... 626] thereof, not the exercise of reason but rather of passion or bias.' Sawicki, supra, 473, 145 N.W.2d 239 citing Spalding v. Spalding, 355 Mich. 382, 384--385, 94 N.W.2d 810, 811 (1959) ... '* * * (R)equests to sequester should ordinarily be granted. People v. Hall, 48 Mich. 482, 487, 12 N.W. 665, 667 (1882). However, our cases also hold that sequestration of witnesses is a matter for the discretion of the trial court * * * On the facts in this case, refusal to sequester Dr. Robey, a rebuttal expert witness, was not an abuse of the trial court's discretion.' ... ...
  • State v. Black
    • United States
    • Montana Supreme Court
    • December 10, 1894
    ...51 N. W. 835;State v. Cook, 30 Kan. 82,.1 Pac. 32;State v. Sorter, 52 Kan. 534, 34 Pac. 1036;Hill v. People, 26 Mich. 496;People v. Hall, 48 Mich. 487, 12 N. W. 665. There was one witness, however, whose name was not indorsed upon the information, as to whom the county attorney did not stat......
  • People v. Cutler
    • United States
    • Court of Appeal of Michigan — District of US
    • January 17, 1977
    ...v. Martin, 386 Mich. 407, 424, 192 N.W.2d 215, 224 (1971): "(R)equests to sequester should ordinarily be granted. People v. Hall, 48 Mich. 482, 487, 12 N.W. 665 (1882). However, our cases also hold that sequestration of witnesses is a matter for the discretion of the trial court. See, for e......
  • Benway v. People of Michigan
    • United States
    • U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit
    • May 16, 1928
    ...of his contention, almost exclusively upon three Michigan cases, People v. Adams, 52 Mich. 24, 17 N. W. 226, People v. Hall, 48 Mich. 482, 12 N. W. 665, 42 Am. Rep. 477, and People v. Repke, 103 Mich. 459, 61 N. W. 861. It is conceded that in the trial of a criminal prosecution removed from......
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