State v. Baum
| Decision Date | 26 February 1900 |
| Parties | STATE v. BAUM. |
| Court | New Jersey Supreme Court |
(Syllabus by the Court.)
Error to court of quarter sessions, Essex county.
Samuel Baum was convicted of burglary, and brings error. Affirmed.
Argued November term, 1899, before the CHIEF JUSTICE, and DEPUE, VAN SYCKEL, and LIPPINCOTT, JJ.
Samuel F. Leber, Charles Hood, and Frank Bradner, for plaintiff in error.
Louis Hood, Esq., for the State.
VAN SYCKEL, J. The defendant was indicted by the Essex county grand jury jointly with one Friedman. The indictment contained five counts: (1) Breaking and entering by night; (2) breaking and entering by day; (3) entering without breaking; (4) larceny; (5) receiving stolen goods. The jury, on the trial of the cause against Samuel Baum alone, returned a verdict of guilty, whereupon he was sentenced to be imprisoned at hard labor in the state prison for two years and six months. The entire record is brought up by this writ of error, in pursuance of the act of 1898 (P. L. 1898, p. 915).
The facts that the court ordered Baum to be tried separately, and that the evidence of a girl under 10 years of age was admitted, furnish no ground of reversal. These were matters within the discretion of the court, and the case fails to show any respect in which the defendant suffered manifest wrong or injury by the exercise of this discretion of the trial court. Nor does it appear that manifest wrong or injury was done to the defendant by the exercise by the trial judge of his undoubted right to comment before the jury upon the evidence in the case. Bruch v. Carter, 32 N. J. Law, 554.
The trial judge, in his charge to the Jury, instructed them that it was admitted that there was no breaking by night, and that therefore that charge must be disregarded, and that, if a verdict was found against defendant, it could be only for entering by day and larceny. The entire record being before us, all the other counts may fairly be regarded as stricken out; and, although there was a general verdict of guilty, no injury was done to the defendant, because the judgment imposed was less severe than the extreme penalty provided for entering by day and larceny. Stephens v. State, 53 N. J. Law, 245, 21 Atl. 1038. In section 136 of the act of 1898, providing for the return of the entire record, the previous provision of the criminal procedure act was Incorporated, providing "that no judgment given upon any indictment shall be reversed for any imperfection, omission, defect in or lack of form, or for any error except such as...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
State v. Johnson
...to indicate that a severance was necessary, or even that the defendants would have consented to separate trials. Cf. State v. Baum, 64 N.J.L. 410, 45 A. 806 (Sup.Ct.1900). Nor did anything happen during the trial which demonstrates that it was plain error not to have ordered separate trials......
- Brady v. Consol. Traction Co.