People v. Meyer
Decision Date | 27 March 1900 |
Parties | PEOPLE v. MEYER. |
Court | New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Appeal from supreme court, trial term, New York county.
Fritz Meyer was convicted of murder in the first degree, and he appeals. Affirmed.
S. J. O'Hare, for appellant.
Charles E. Le Barbier, for the People.
At a term of the supreme court, held in and for the county of New York on the 23d day of November, 1897, the defendant was convicted of the crime of murder in the first degree, for the killing of one Frederick Smith, a police officer in the city of New York. The evidence which constitutes the case of the people discloses the following facts: The Church of the Most Holy Redeemer is situate on East Third street and Avenue A, in New York City. At the rear or Fourth street end of the church is the parochial school, which is so constructed and connected with the church building as to form a part thereof. Fronting on Third street is the rectory or priest's house, which is connected with the church by means of a hallway or corridor, and doors leading from the same into the church and rectory, respectively. In the church, near the Third street entrances thereof, there were located four ‘poor boxes,’ or receptacles for the alms of those attending the services. Each of these boxes was connected by an electrical appliance with a bell or ‘burglar alarm’ placed in a room in the rectory. On the night of the 26th of October, 1897, about 10 minutes before midnight, this burglar alarm sounded, and aroused Conrad Kirchhaff, otherwise known as ‘Brother William,’ who occupied that room on that night. He hastily dressed himself, and, going out upon the street, gave an alarm, which was responded to by Police Officer Frederick Smith. These two were immediately joined by Police Officer William N. Conklin and one Otto Dengler, a citizen residing opposite the church. They proceeded into the rectory, where they procured lights, and from thence into the church. An examination of the poor boxes disclosed that the first three were intact, but the fourth one, from which the alarm had proceeded, was found broken open; the door thereof lying upon the floor. Search was then made of the church. After going the whole length of the church, in separate aisles, the party came together at the altar, and at this juncture Officer Smith discovered that the door leading from the church into an alleyway which communicated with the schoolroom was open. He disappeared through that door, lantern in hand, and in about two minutes two distinct shots were heard from the direction of the schoolroom. Officer Conklin and Brother William at once entered the schoolroom, and saw a human form retreating ‘head first’ through the upper half of a door leading to Fourth street. Upon looking about the schoolroom they saw Officer Smith lying across two school desks, with his face downward, breathing heavily and bleeding. Officer Conklin ran to the door, the upper of glass part of which had been broken by the person who had jumped through the same, and shouted to some persons who had been attracted by the crashing of glass, ‘Stop that man.’ Thereupon Max Schmidt and Charles Vietze, two bystanders, seized the man, who was positively identified by Officer Conklin as the man whom he saw going through the window, and quite as positively identified by Schmidt and Vietze as being the defendant. Schmidt saw something in defendant's hip pocket which glittered, and, upon taking it out, it proved to be a revolver. At the same time one Frank Henrich, another bystander, who saw the man coming out of the window, and identified the defendant as that man, pulled out of the defendant's hand a long, round package, which resembled, in form and weight, an instrument which was afterwards called a ‘jimmy.’ This instrument was given by Henrich to one Endres, who describes it as a chisel. The latter gave it to one Imsen, and he in turn gave it to a police officer. The revolver taken from the defendant by Schmidt was handed to Officer Conklin, who turned it over to Police Sergeant Diamond. The latter testified that it was a six-chamber revolver, and when it was delivered to him two chambers were empty, and four were loaded. Other witnesses described it as a 32-caliber revolver. After turning the defendant over to Officer Ryan, Officer Conklin sent in a call for an ambulance. This was responded to at once. Upon arriving at the church the surgeon in charge of the ambulance found Officer Smith in a moribund condition, and within a few minutes he died. Such further facts as are material will be discussed in connection with the questions raised by this appeal.
After his arraignment, and before a jury was impaneled, the defendant interposed a challenge to the panel of jurors summoned for the term at which his case was tried. The grounds of challenge were ‘(1) that the panel of jurors summoned for the trial of criminal causes in this court for the term commencing November 1, 1897, has been improperly, illegally, and in contravention of defendant's constitutional right, drawn from an improper and illegal and insufficient list of trial jurors for the trial of causes in the city and county of New York, especially in that from such list of trial jurors, and in the drawing and summoning of this panel therefrom, there were illegally, improperly, and in contravention of defendant's constitutional right, excluded therefrom, and not included or embraced therein, all persons selected by the special commissioner of jurors in and for the city and county of New York appointed by the Appellate division of the supreme court for the First department, pursuant to chapter 378 of the Laws of 1896, entitled ‘An act providing for a special jury in criminal cases,’ etc.; and (2) that upwards of two thousand five hundred persons qualified to serve as trial jurors in said city and county have been excluded from such lists of trial jurors, from which said panels were drawn and summoned, and have been placed upon a list of special jurors for the trial of criminal cases, pursuant to said act, and have been improperly and illegally exempted from service upon general and ordinary duty as trial jurors under the provisions of said act, to the injury of defendant's substantial rights.' When the twelfth juror was called the defendant had exhausted the peremptory challenges to which he was entitled. After unsuccessfully challenging this juror upon various grounds, the defendant interposed the same challenge that he had previously offered to the panel. The exceptions taken to adverse rulings upon these challenges present the first question we are called upon to consider. This precise question was before this court in People v. Dunn, 157 N. Y. 528,53 N. E. 572,43 L. R. A. 247. In that case Judge Gray very clearly disposes of the fallacy that mere regulations of the methods by which jurors are drawn are invasions of constitutional rights. It is true that in the Dunn Case the question was examined from the opposite point of view. But the principle underlying the whole question is the same. There the defendant complained because he was compelled to take his jury from those selected by the special commissioner of jurors, instead of being permitted to select them from the general panel. Here the defendant objects because he is driven to a choice from the general panel after the special commissioner of jurors had taken therefrom 2,500 men of presumably superior intelligence. In either event the result is the same, so long as it does not infringe upon the right of a party to such a trial by jury as the constitution guaranties. And what does the constitution guaranty? Simply the right to a trial by a common-law jury of 12 men. Wynehamer v. People, 13 N. Y. 378–458. Such a jury is none the less a common-law jury because the legislature happens to have provided for the particular mode of selection. This has always been regarded as a mere legislative regulation. The whole matter may be summarized in the simple inquiry whether the defendant had such a jury as he would have been entitled to if no special jury law had ever been enacted. The answer is obvious, and, in view of the elaborate discussion of this question in the Dunn Case, we deem it unnecessary to pursue it further.
Upon the trial evidence was given of confessions alleged to have been made by the defendant to the witnesses Dengler, Herlihy, and others. This evidence was objected to on the grounds that such confessions, if made, were not voluntary, but were made under duress, and under the influence of fear produced by threats, while the defendant was in actual custody, and after he had been subjected to brutality at the hands of the police. To this objection the court interposed the suggestion that there was no evidence that the defendant had been subjected to brutality at the hands of the police, or that the defendant's statements had been made under fear produced by threats, or were not voluntary. The court thereupon overruled defendant's objection, but gave him the opportunity to crossexamine the witnesses as to the circumstances under which defendant made the alleged confessions. Defendant's counsel thereupon examined the witnesses by whose testimony the prosecution offered to prove said confessions. At the conclusion of these preliminary cross-examinations the witnesses were permitted to testify to the statements made by the defendant concerning the homicide. To this defendant objected on the ground that it appeared that such statements were not voluntarily made, but were made under the influence of fear produced by threats. The court ruled that the evidence elicited on defendant's preliminary cross-examinations was not sufficient to present a question as to whether said confessions were voluntarily made or not, and overruled defendant's objections. The same question arose at different stages of the trial, both upon the exceptions taken to the admission of this...
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...body. This claim that the special panel had withdrawn twenty-five hundred 'men of presumably superior intelligence,' 162 N.Y. at page 362, 56 N.E. at page 759, too, was rejected by the Court of Appeals. People v. Meyer, 1900, 162 N.Y. 357, 56 N.E. Then, in 1901, an attack on the constitutio......
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...a distinction in the rule of those cases when the homicide is committed on the premises where the felony is perpetrated. People v. Meyer, 162 N.Y. 357, 56 N.E. 758; People v. Huter, 184 N.Y. 237, 77 N.E. 6; v. Giro, 197 N.Y. 152, 90 N.E. 432; People v. Michalow, 229 N.Y. 325, 128 N.E. 228. ......
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