People v. Schneider, 66.

• Decision Date: 05 June 1944
• Docket Number: No. 66.,66.
• Citation: 14 N.W.2d 819,309 Mich. 158
• Parties: PEOPLE v. SCHNEIDER.
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court

309 Mich. 158

14 N.W.2d 819

PEOPLE

v.SCHNEIDER.

No. 66.

Supreme Court of Michigan.

June 5, 1944.

Ray D. Schneider was convicted of accepting a bribe, and he appeals.

Affirmed.

Appeal from Recorder's Court for City of Detroit; John J. Maher, judge.

Before the Entire Bench.

Frank G. Schemanske, of Detroit, for appellant, Ray D. Schneider.

Herbert J. Rushton, Atty. Gen. of Michigan, Edmund E. Shepherd, Sol. Gen. of Michigan, of Lansing, and William E. Dowling, Pros. Atty., of Wayne County, and John W. Gilmore and Henrietta E. Rosenthal, Asst. Pros. Attys., all of Detroit, for the People.

SHARPE, Justice.

Defendant, one of the county auditors of Wayne county, was arrested, charged and convicted of the crime of accepting a bribe, contrary to the provisions of section 118 of the penal code, Act No. 328, chap. 17, § 118, Pub.Acts 1931 (Comp.Laws Supp.1940, § 17115-118, Stat.Ann. § 28.313). The information charged defendant with receiving money from Edgar M. Robbins in pursuance of an unlawful agreement and understanding that his vote, opinion, judgment or influence would favor the awarding of contracts of insurance to the said Edgar M. Robbins. The cause was set for trial for September 16, 1942, but a mistrial was declared on September 21, 1942, by reason of the following article appearing in the Detroit Free Press, a newspaper published in the city of Detroit:

‘Good Money After Bad

‘Ray D. Schneider, ousted Wayne county auditor charged with accepting bribes, has been brought to trial. A great deal of public money has been spent to establish that evidence against him warrants presentation of the case to the jury. A further substantial sum must go out of the tax-supported coffers to determine his guilt or innocence.

‘Nor is there ground to hope that should the present jury convict Schneider it would terminate this outlay. If he chooses, the ex-auditor can protract the processes of justice indefinitely-as witness former Prosecutor Duncan C. McCrea, and former Sheriff Thomas C. Wilcox. Long since convicted of betraying the public's trust, they still are free men by reason of appeal processes.

‘Other Wayne county officials and appointees-among them another former auditor, Edward H. Williams-accepted jury findings without taking recourse to further court fights and are now in prison. Having cheated Wayne county's taxpayers out of scores of thousands of dollars by their malfeasances, having put the State and county to the cost of trying them, they are now being supported by the State as inmates of institutions.

‘Altogether, Michigan's taxpayers have taken a thorough financial drubbing from corrupt officials in this county. With the opportunities for pilfering Wayne's present governmental form offers, it is inevitable that sooner or later another gang of rogues will take it over. Then the whole costly, shameful process will have to be gone through again-with every taxpayer in Michigan as the ultimate sucker * * *.’

On October 4, 1942, a day before the trial of defendant was to commence, the Detroit News, a newspaper published in the city of Detroit, published the following editorial:

‘Michigan Voters Are Asked to Help Wayne's Program

‘Once again we appeal to all decent, law-respecting out-State voters for their support of Proposal No. 2, the amendment to give Wayne county a chance to reform its government.

‘Voters like you often have been disgusted by political goings-on in Wayne.

‘Rest assured you have not been alone in that feeling, which is shared here in Wayne county by good citizens like yourselves. Long ago the decent citizens of Wayne recognized the need for reform, as well as the kind of reform needed. Two attempts have been made to get a more responsible form of government, both wrecked by political shysters aided, as it developed, by your indifference out-State.

‘With the present attempt, we in Wayne county feel it is now or never. The Judge Ferguson grant jury just has finished turning up evidence of county graft that is a stench in the nostrils of all Michigan. Two auditors, a sheriff and a prosecutor have been convicted, as well as a number of lesser officials and former officials.

‘We in Wayne county feel that if this will not arouse the out-State voter to come to our assistance, nothing will. Here is the clinching evidence that our big industrial county, with its more than 2,000,000 population, simply can not have proper government with the present governmental forms.

‘Maybe the present form gives reasonable satisfaction in YOUR county. It doesn't here. Here it means a board of supervisors bigger than most state legislatures. It means a dozen ‘executives' to be voted on, whom not one voter in a thousand can name, let alone keep track of. Here on Wayne this is a set-up for corrupt machine government, and that is what we get.

‘The amendment we ask you to support as proposal No. 2 provides for a simplified government, with only one county executive and a small legislative body. It calls for nonpartisan voting and the hiring of county employes under civil service restrictions. It provides, in short, for the kind of government Wayne can hope to hold responsible.

‘People are going to tell you, perhaps in the last days of the campaign, that this is all right but why not leave it to the legislature. We've tried that and failed, because machine politicians were strong enough to sabotage the legislation. People are going to tell you that, even if an amendment is necessary, voting on it is Wayne's problem, not yours.

‘Ask those people why, then, they are so eager to beat Wayne's amendment!

‘The truth is, this is your problem. Only your votes, plus ours, can put the amendment over, against the combined opposition of the machine out-State and the county machine here. It is your problem because Wayne is a part of Michigan and what dirties Wayne politics dirties politics the State over.

‘The decent citizens of Wayne county are counting on you in this, their greatest and final effort to clean up Wayne county. Will you help?’.

On October 5, 1942, counsel for defendant moved for an adjournment because of the proximity of the date of the trial to the date of the Detroit Free Press article and the Detroit News editorial. At the request of the trial court all members of the jury were questioned in their voir dire examination with regard to the above articles, and all denied any prejudice as a result of reading or hearing about the articles. The motion for adjournment was denied and the cause proceeded to trial, resulting in conviction of defendant. Defendant appeals and complains that he was not accorded a fair trial by reason of the trial having taken place so soon after the publication of the above articles; that it was error to offer and receive in evidence certain exhibits which were expense accounts of defendant as a candidate for county auditor; and for failure to give an instruction, later referred to.

It is to be noted that before a jury was selected the trial judge made the following statement: ‘The court will...