McClanahan v. State
| Decision Date | 14 April 1954 |
| Docket Number | No. 29138,29138 |
| Parties | McCLANAHAN v. STATE. |
| Court | Indiana Supreme Court |
Claude Cline, Huntington, for appellant.
Edwin K. Steers, Atty. Gen., Carl Humble, Deputy Atty. Gen., for appellee.
This is an appeal from a judgment for the State, entered on the refusal of the appellant to amend his petition for writ of error coram nobis after a demurrer by the State had been sustained. An appeal had been taken from the judgment on the verdict finding appellant guilty of the second offense of operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of intoxicating liquor, and in McClanahan v. State, Ind.1953, 112 N.E.2d 575, we affirmed the judgment.
The verified petition for the writ charged in substance that while the jury was deliberating on the verdict the foreman left the jury room at the request of the jury, obtained from the bailiff in charge of the jury a book containing the statute pertaining to the charge upon which appellant was being tried, which the foreman took into the jury room and read to the members of the jury; that thereafter the jury had a disagreement about the age of the appellant, and the foreman again left the jury room and talked to the bailiff about appellant's age, and thereafter he returned to the jury room and inserted in the verdict the figures '48' as his age. The petition did not charge that the foreman left the court room or the offices of the court, or the custody of the bailiff, and from all that appears in the petition the foreman could have been just outside the jury room door when he was conversing with the bailiff. See Masterson v. State, 1896, 144 Ind. 240, 249, 43 N.E. 138. The finding as to the defendant's age was not an indispensable part of the verdict. Colip v. State, 1899, 153 Ind. 584, 589, 590, 55 N.E. 739.
The State contends the reasoning of this court in Mulreed v. State, 1886, 107 Ind. 62, 66, 67, 7 N.E. 884, 887, answers the remaining issue, and we agree. In the Mulreed case, appellant contended prejudicial error had been committed by permitting the jury to have in the jury room an annotated copy of the Revised Statutes of 1881. The court said, 'it would seem to us that as the jury are authorized by our fundamental law, in all criminal cases whatever, to determine the law as well as the facts, 1 it could hardly be regarded as an available or reversible error, if any error at all, for the trial court to permit the jury, in any criminal cause, to read, in their retirement, the statute...
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Shultz v. State
...went for a walk to the location where the crime had occurred was held to provide no grounds for a new trial. In McClanahan v. State (1954), 233 Ind. 365, 118 N.E.2d 734, the jury was given a copy of the statute under which the defendant was prosecuted and also discussed with the bailiff, ou......
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Cox v. State
...Subsection (b) prevents the officer from communicating with the jury except in very limited circumstances. In McClanahan v. State (1954), 233 Ind. 365, 118 N.E.2d 734, this Court considered this issue and concluded the finding of the defendant's age was not an indispensable part of the verd......
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Gann v. State
...be shown when the jury takes documents into its deliberations. Posey v. State, (1955) 234 Ind. 696, 131 N.E.2d 145; McClanahan v. State, (1954) 233 Ind. 365, 118 N.E.2d 734. The juror who had the notes testified that she made these simple notes at home without communication to or from anoth......
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Deming v. State
...errors or defects'. Rickard v. State, 1881, 74 Ind. 275; Shular v. State, 1903, 160 Ind. 300, 66 N.E. 746; McClanahan v. State, 1954, 233 Ind. 365, 118 N.E.2d 734. See also 41 A.L.R.2d 227. We concur in the principle of law upon which those cases are based. However, we do not concur in the ......