State v. Bresland
| Decision Date | 06 December 1894 |
| Docket Number | 9025 |
| Citation | 61 N.W. 450,59 Minn. 281 |
| Parties | State of Minnesota v. Anna Bresland |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Submitted on briefs November 20, 1894
Appeal by defendant, Anna Bresland, from a judgment of the District Court of St. Louis County, J. D. Ensign, J., rendered June 29, 1894, convicting her of the crime of keeping a house of assignation in the city of Duluth. On this conviction she was sentenced to be punished by confinement in the state prison at Stillwater at hard labor for the period of four years.
The defendant upon impaneling the jury challenged two jurymen for bias and cause and upon their being sworn upon their voir dire, showed by them that they were so well acquainted in the city that they were liable to know the location of the house alleged to have been kept by her, but that they did not know the defendant and knew nothing of the case against her. Defendant then asked of each if he had heard any statement concerning the character of the house which her counsel admitted had been kept by her from April 20, 1894, to the date of the alleged commission of the offense, whereby he had formed any opinion as to the character of such house as being a house of assignation, to which question the State then and there objected. The objection was sustained, the court holding that the defendant in her questions must be confined to opinions formed by the proposed jurymen from what they had heard, as to the innocence or guilt of the prisoner. To each of these rulings, defendant excepted whereupon one of the jurymen so challenged was accepted and the other was challenged peremptorily by her.
Judgment is reversed, and a new trial ordered.
White & McKeon, for appellant, cited State v. Smith, 29 Minn. 193; State v. Boardman, 64 Me. 523 Wooster v. State, 55 Ala. 217; Handy v State, 63 Miss. 207; Henson v. State, 62 Md 231; Cadwell v. State, 17 Conn. 467; Toney v. State, 60 Ala. 97; State v. Lyon, 39 Ia. 379; United States v. Jourdine, 4 Cranch C. C. 338; State v. Foley, 45 N.H. 466; People v. Mauch, 24 How. Pr. 276; Commonwealth v. Stewart, 1 Serg. & R. 342.
H. W. Childs, Attorney General, Geo. B. Edgerton, his assistant, and Chas. C. Tear, County Attorney, for the State, cited State v. Lawlor, 28 Minn. 216; State v. Kluseman, 53 Minn. 541; State v. Smith, 29 Minn. 193; People v. Rowland, 5 Barb. 449.
Canty, J. Gilfillan, C. J., absent on account of sickness, took no part.
The defendant was convicted in the court below on an indictment under Penal Code, § 281, charging her with keeping an assignation house in the city of Duluth, was sentenced, and appealed to this court.
It appears by the bill of exceptions that, when the petit jury was being impaneled, the defendant challenged two of the proposed jurors for actual bias. In the examination of each juror as a witness under oath, he stated that he did not know the defendant, and knew nothing against her. He was then asked if he had heard any statement concerning the character of the house alleged to have been kept by the defendant, by reason of which he had formed an opinion as to the character of such house as being a house of assignation. At the time of asking the question, defendant's counsel admitted that defendant kept the house specified at the date charged in the indictment, and for a month immediately prior thereto. The state objected to the question, and the objection was sustained by the Judge, who held that the defendant, in her questions, must be confined to questions as to opinions formed from what the juror had heard as to the guilt or innocence of the defendant. To these rulings defendant excepted, and this is assigned as error. We are of the opinion that it was error. The defendant was entitled to ask the questions as she did ask them. She was not obliged, on the court's suggestion, to adopt as a question what in that case might be a meaningless formula, or might elicit only an evasive or unsatisfactory answer. From the admission of counsel, the only question to be tried was whether the house in question was an assignation house at the time in question, and she had a right to strip her question of all immaterial matters, and so ask it that the answer would be in point; and this she did. One of said two jurors was accepted and served on the jury, and the other was by defendant challenged peremptorily.
It does not appear by the settled case that the defendant exhausted her peremptory challenges, and on the authority of State v. Lawlor, 28 Minn. 216, (9 N.W 698,) and State v. Kluseman, 53 Minn. 541, (55 N.W. 741,) the attorney general urges that it was error without prejudice. We are not disposed to question the authority of those cases, but they are not cases where the defendant was prevented from discovering, by the use of proper questions, the bias, prejudice, or leanings of the juror. The error, if any, in those cases, was in retaining in the one case, and rejecting in the other, the juror after the examination was closed. The defendant in each case could intelligently exercise his right of peremptory challenge, -- in the one case on the juror retained, and in the other case on...
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