People v. Hall

Citation48 Mich. 482,12 N.W. 665
PartiesPEOPLE v. HALL.
Decision Date14 June 1882
CourtSupreme Court of Michigan

48 Mich. 482
12 N.W. 665

PEOPLE
v.
HALL.

Supreme Court of Michigan.

Filed June 14, 1882.


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.

[12 N.W. 665]

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

[12 N.W. 666]

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...

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