People v. Murawski
| Decision Date | 12 September 1946 |
| Docket Number | No. 29424.,29424. |
| Citation | 68 N.E.2d 272,394 Ill. 236 |
| Parties | PEOPLE v. MURAWSKI. |
| Court | Illinois Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Error to Circuit Court, Winnebago County; William R. Dusher, judge.
Mary Murawski was convicted of the crime of abortion and she brings error.
Reversed and remanded.
B. Jay Knight, Frederick H. Haye, and Thomas A. Keegan, all of Rockford, for plaintiff in error.
George F. Barrett, Atty. Gen., and Max A. Weston, State's Atty., of Rockford (Robert C. Kelso, of Rockford, of counsel), for the People.
Upon a trial before a jury in the circuit court of Winnebago county, plaintiff in error was found guilty of the crime of abortion. After overruling motions for a new trial and in arrest, judgment was entered on the verdict. Plaintiff in error was sentenced to the penitentiary. She has sued out a writ of error in this cause to review that judgment. The errors assigned relate to the sufficiency of the evidence; the action of the court in refusing to order and declare a mistrial; the giving of instructions; the argument of the State's Attorney to the jury, and the conduct of the court during the trial.
In view of the conclusion which we have reached, we express no opinion on the weight of the evidence. The record shows that the trial was commenced on April 9, 1945. On the adjournment for the day, the jury was permitted to separate overnight. On the convening of court on the morning of April 10, plaintiff in error, by her attorney, presented a motion in which the court was asked to order and declare a mistrial. To the motion was attached the affidavit of her attorney. By the affidavit it was shown that in the morning issue of a local newspaper, published and circulated in the city of Rockford on April 10, 1945, a certain article appeared concerning the proceedings of the trial on the previous day; that the article referred to certain alleged criminal charges made against the defendant on prior occasions, and was highly prejudicial to the defendant. It was further stated in the affidavit that the newspaper in which this article appeared had a general circulation in the community covering approximately a radius of 60 miles from the city of Rockford; that during the examination of the jurors on their voir dire, on April 9, 1946, in answer to questions propounded by both the State's Attorney and the attorney for the defendant, several of the jurors stated that they were accustomed to reading this particular newspaper in their homes; that thousands of copies of the issue of April 10, 1945, were delivered to the respective homes of the residents of Winnebago county and the city of Rockford; that copies were also sold on the newsstands throughout the city, and that said paper was the only daily morning newspaper published in the city of Rockford and vicinity. To the motion there was also attached, as exhibit A, a copy of the article complained of. Insofar as material, this published article is as follows:
It clearly appears from the record that the ‘Weston’ referred to in the article was the State's Attorney engaged in the prosecution of the case. The court overruled the motion for a mistrial, and ordered the trial of the cause to proceed. The action of the court in overruling the motion was duly objected to at that time, and was also challenged by the motion for a new trial. The jurors were not admonished, either by the instructions of otherwise, that they could not properly consider anything they may have read about the case.
Defendant in error seeks to justify the action of the court in refusing to declare a mistrial on the ground that there is no positive proof in the record that any of the jurors had read the particular article complained of. As pointed out by this court in People v. Marmon, 389 Ill. 478, 59 N.E.2d 808, any attempt to have questioned the jurors to ascertain whether they had read the published article would have disclosed it to the entire jury. The defendant in error, in support of its contention, relies chiefly on People v. Marmon, 389 Ill. 478, 59 N.E.2d 808;People v. Harrison, 384 Ill. 201, 51 N.E.2d 172;People v. Mangano, 354 Ill. 329, 188 N.E. 475; and People v. Herbert, 340 Ill. 320, 172 N.E. 740. The leading case is the last of the above-cited cases. It was said in that case that there was nothing in the record save counsel's assertion to show that the jurors read the article complained of. Similar language was used in the other cases above referred to. All of those cases, however, were tried in the city of Chicago, where there were a number of newspapers published and circulated, and where the population is exceedingly dense. It was shown by the record in that case that when the article complained of was called to the attention of the court, the jury was instructed that it must ignore all mention of the defendant in the newspapers; that it had been sworn to try the case only upon the evidence adduced on the trial, and that there was no evidence that the defendant had been connected with any other unlawful business. No such precautions were taken in this case. In those cases the...
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People v. Miller
...the jurors, or at least some of them, have read the newspaper accounts. People v. Gambino, 12 Ill.2d 29, 145 N.E.2d 42; People v. Murawski, 394 Ill. 236, 68 N.E.2d 272. This was the standard applied by the trial court and, from our examination of the facts and circumstances in the record, w......
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People v. Brinn
...and a complete failure to instruct or admonish the jury not to consider anything they may have read about the case. People v. Murawski, 394 Ill. 236, 68 N.E.2d 272. In People v. Gambino, 12 Ill.2d 29, at pages 36-37, 145 N.E.2d 42 at page 46, this court affirmed the denial of a motion for a......
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Van Hattem v. Kmart Corp.
...been interfered with. Such inference is, however, a judicial discretion, the abuse of which will constitute reversible error. People v. Murawski, 394 Ill. 236 A review of the Channel 5 News tape "Prescription for Trouble?" and of the evidence presented at trial, reveals that the content of ......
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People v. Marsh
... ... Murawski, 394 Ill. 236, 68 N.E.2d 272, which reversed a conviction because of the publication of facts disclosed by the State's Attorney, and it is contended that the basis of the court's reversal in that case is not nearly as prejudicial as in the instant case. We are of the opinion, however, that the ... ...