People v. Miller

• Decision Date: 15 July 1931
• Citation: 257 N.Y. 54,177 N.E. 306
• Parties: PEOPLE v. MILLER.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

257 N.Y. 54

177 N.E. 306

PEOPLE

v.MILLER.

Court of Appeals of New York.

July 15, 1931.

Leroy J. Miller was convicted of murder in the first degree, and he appeals.

Affirmed.

Appeal from Onondaga County Court.

R. J. Shanahan, of Syracuse, for appellant.

Clarence Unckless, Dist. Atty., of Syracuse (William C. Martin, and De Banks M. Henward, both of Syracuse, of counsel), for respondent.

CARDOZO, C. J.

The evidence amply sustains the verdict that the defendant shot and killed Gladys Blaich with a deliberate and premeditated design to cause her death.

An opinion would not be necessary if it were not for erroneous rulings of the trial judge which in this case were harmless, but which if repeated in other cases, where guilt is not so clearly proved, might cause justice to be thwarted.

(1) The defendant's mother, Mary Miller, gave testimony as to the defendant's life history and his relations to the murdered woman. On cross-examination, she was questioned by the district attorney as to her statements on the same subject when examined by the grand jury. At the stage of redirect examination, counsel for the defendant made demand upon the district attorney that he be permitted to inspect the copy of the minutes of the grand jury from which the district attorney had been examining, in so far as they included the testimony of the witness then upon the stand. The demand was refused, and, upon the protest of counsel, the court upheld the refusal.

We think the minutes to the extent demanded should have been offered for inspection. The people invoke the rule whereby the secrecy of the proceedings before the grand jury must be preserved inviolate. Code Cr. Proc. § 265. It is a rule not without exceptions, some of them declared by statute (Code Cr. Proc. § 266), others implied by courts when essential to the ends of justice. People ex rel. Hirschberg v. Board of Supervisors of Orange County, 251 N. Y. 156, 170, 171, 167 N. E. 204;Attorney-General v. Pelletier, 240 Mass. 264, 134 N. E. 407;State v. Campbell, 73 Kan. 688, 85 P. 784,9 L. R. A. (N. S.) 533,9 Ann. Cas. 1203; 4 Wigmore on Evidence, §§ 2360-2363. The district attorney might have refrained, if he had pleased, from asking the witness anything about her previous testimony. He was not at liberty, after exhibiting so much of it as was helpful to the people, to deprive the defendant of the privilege of exhibiting the residue.

The error, for such it was, was not so substantial in its bearing on the fate of the defendant as to call for a reversal of the judgment of conviction. Code Cr. Proc. § 542. What was said by Mrs. Miller before the grand jury, though left unqualified by anything else that she may have said at the same time, was too trivial in its significance, too fully in accord with the testimony on her direct examination by counsel for the defendant, to have counted as a material factor in the choice of innocence or guilt. There is no reasonable possibility that the qualifying statements, if any such there were, could have changed the verdict of the jury, if the defendant had been allowed to prove them.

What is true of the testimony of the witness Mary Miller, is true, and for like reasons, of the testimony of other witnesses, Shapiro and Keville. Their testimony before the grand jury, as brought out by counsel for the people, was not at variance, in any substantial measure, with their testimony at the trial, as brought out by the defense. There is no suggestion in the record that the complete minutes, if produced, would have shown any testimony qualifying or retracting what had been quoted by the people. Even if they would, there is no reasonable possibility that a different verdict would have followed.

(2) The defendant complains also of the refusal of the court to allow him to inspect letters marked for identification. Manning, a state trooper, testified for the people that he had visited the home of Gladys Blaich, and in her room had found letters, from which he had gathered ten that appeared to be in the same handwriting. These letters were marked for identification. They were never offered in evidence. There is nothing to show who wrote them. They were produced as a batch of papers found in a stated place, and there the matter rested.

The defendant did not attempt to cross-examine about the contents of these writings while Manning was on the stand. After the close of the people's case, however, he asked permission to inspect them. The refusal of the judge to direct the counsel for the people to comply with his request is now assigned as error.

When documents present in court are of such a nature that if called for by a subpoena they would be subject to inspection by the adverse party, the duty of the judge is to direct the holder of the documents to produce and exhibit them. Boynton v. Boynton, 16 Abb. Prac. 87, affirmed 41 N. Y. 619;Hunton v. Hertz & Hosbach Co., 118 Mich. 475, 76 N. W. 1041;Kincaide v. Cavanagh, 198 Mass. 34, 3684 N. E. 307; 4 Wigmore on Evidence, § 2200. Indeed, he may do so in his discretion, though the documents are not in court, if they are procurable by a witness or a party subject to his orders. Comm. v. Lannan, 13 Allen (Mass.) 563;Kincaide v. Cavanagh, supra. The formality of a subpoena ought not to be insisted on when it will serve no useful purpose, and least of all to the prejudice of one in jeopardy for a capital offense. On the other hand, the judge is not under a duty to compel the production of the documents at the very moment they are called for by counsel for the prisoner, unless the circumstances of the case make them presently important, as where they are necessary for the purpose of cross-examination then and there. A reasonable discretion may be exercised as to the time most consonant with justice. Documents in the possession of the prosecutor and marked for identification may be so related to the proof of guilt that their contents ought not to be divulged at the moment of the marking. Justice will sometimes be promoted if disclosure of the contents is withheld till the fabric of the proof shall be more fully and closely woven. The rights of a defendant, will generally be sufficiently protected if inspection is permitted before the case is closed.

We think the ruling of the court, amounting as it did to a refusal to direct the inspection of the letters at any stage of the trial, was error whereby the defendant would be aggrieved if there were a reasonable possibility that it had an...