Santry v. State

• Decision Date: 03 November 1886
• Citation: 67 Wis. 65,30 N.W. 226
• Parties: SANTRY v. STATE.
• Court: Wisconsin Supreme Court

67 Wis. 65

30 N.W. 226

SANTRY

v.STATE.

Supreme Court of Wisconsin.

November 3, 1886.

Error to circuit court, Racine county.

One Louis Christensen, a boy about 18 years of age, was twice tried for the murder of Michael Schultz, June 17, 1884. Upon the first trial the jury disagreed, and on the second he was convicted. Soon after his imprisonment at Waupun he proposed to make and did make a voluntary confession, implicating the plaintiff in error and others in the murder. Upon being charged and tried for the murder, the plaintiff in error, John Santry, was convicted and sentenced to the state's prison. To reverse the judgment entered thereon this writ of error is brought.Edwin White Moore, for plaintiff in error, Santry.

H. W. Cheynoweth, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

CASSODAY, J.

The testimony is voluminous, and presented as it came from the reporter. There is no succinct statement of any portion of the record. There is no printed or written brief pointing out where the alleged errors may be found, nor of authorities in support of the propositions urged upon the oral argument. In view of these facts, we would be justified in affirming the judgment without looking into the record. But this is a criminal case, and so we have carefully considered the several questions suggested at the bar, to the end that no injustice should be done to the prisoner.

1. The principal contention is that the verdict is not supported by the evidence. But the facts are too numerous, and the testimony too circumstantial, as bearing upon the guilt of the prisoner, to justify a disturbance of the verdict on that ground.

2. The district attorney was under no obligation to furnish the defense with a copy of Christensen's confession, and his refusal so to do was not error.

3. After having made seven strikes from the jurymen called, and expressed himself willing to take the jury, the district attorney was allowed, against objection, to strike from the list of jurors the name of a juryman upon the list when he so waived his strike. The district attorney was entitled to 12 peremptory challenges. Section 4690, Rev. St. Did the mere fact that he passed the list once without striking preclude him, before exhausting his challenges, from thereafter striking any upon the list when he so passed? When the challenge was exercised by the state, the jury had not been accepted by both parties and sworn, and hence the case is distinguished from State v. Cameron, 2 Pin. 496; S. C. 2 Chand. 172; and Lamb v. State, 36 Wis. 426. The peremptory challenges were not exhausted, as in the case of the juryman Fairfield in Schoeffler v. State, 3 Wis. 738. The intimation, in that case, that the juryman Morly might have been properly so challenged by either party before such challenges were exhausted, favors the ruling in this case. Id. 835. In the absence of any statutory regulation or rule of court on the subject, the order of challenging jurors seems to be within the discretion of the trial court, which will not be reviewed unless there appears to have been an abuse...