State v. Courtney
| Decision Date | 05 March 1930 |
| Docket Number | 30406 |
| Citation | 127 So. 735,170 La. 314 |
| Court | Louisiana Supreme Court |
| Parties | STATE v. COURTNEY et al |
Appeal from Twenty-First Judicial District Court, Parish of Livingston; Nathan B. Tycer, Judge.
Rederick Courtney and Lawrence McDonald were convicted of conspiring to commit burglary, and they appeal.
Affirmed.
M. C Rownd, of Springfield, for appellants.
Percy Saint, Atty. Gen., A. L. Ponder, Jr., Dist. Atty., of Amite and E. R. Schowalter, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.
The defendants appeal from their conviction and sentences on a charge of conspiring to commit burglary. There are eight bills of exception in the record, which we will pass on in their order.
Bill No. 1. Only six jurors had been selected when the regular venire was exhausted. The trial judge ordered fifteen names to be drawn from the tales jury box for the purpose of completing the jury. From the list of talesmen so drawn four additional jurors were obtained. The jury being still incomplete, the trial judge again ordered that fifteen names be drawn from the tales jury box. When this was done, defendants, through their counsel objected and moved to quash the drawing, on the ground that the box did not contain the requisite one hundred names. After argument of counsel, the trial judge sustained the motion and ordered the list quashed. A recess was then declared, and, when the court reconvened, the tales jury box, containing one hundred names, was, in obedience to another order of the trial judge, produced and opened by the proper officers, in the presence of the parties and their counsel, and the names of fifteen talesmen drawn therefrom. The defendants, through their counsel, also interposed an objection to this drawing, and, upon their objection being overruled, reserved a bill. The two jurors required to complete the panel were obtained from among these talesmen.
Counsel for defendants strenuously argues that the third and final drawing of tales jurors was illegal because the jury commission, in filling the tales jury box with one hundred names, under the order of the trial judge, returned to the box the slips bearing the names of the fifteen tales jurors that had been removed therefrom on the second drawing, which, upon his objection, had been quashed. Counsel contends that, under the law, the slips containing the names of the tales jurors, to the drawing of which he had objected, should have been destroyed and not reused.
Whatever might be the force of counsel's argument in a proper case, it is wholly unavailing in the present case. The minutes of the court show that the only objection made and reserved by counsel to the drawing of the fifteen talesmen in question was that the witnesses signing the proces verbal of the drawing by the jury commission of one hundred names to fill the tales jury box were not present during the entire time required to complete the work. Testimony was heard on the objection, after which it was overruled by the trial judge. The bill of exception itself shows that it was apparently taken to the motion of the trial judge in overruling defendants' objection to the summoning of fifteen additional tales jurors after the previous list of fifteen tales jurors had been quashed.
Counsel for the defendant has not argued the issue tendered by his bill. For our own part, we do not see any merit in the point reserved. The record, as we understand it, discloses that there were only fifteen names in the tales jury box the second time it was produced and opened in the court below. When these names were drawn and rejected, the empty box was placed in charge of the jury commission, who were instructed by the trial judge to fill it with one hundred names, which was done. It is obvious, therefore, that, if the defendants are correct in their contention that the fifteen tales jurors whose names were subsequently drawn from the box could not be summoned for jury service, there was no way in the world in which the jury, of whom ten members had already been selected, could be completed and a trial had of the offense with which they were charged. The mere statement of the proposition demonstrates its unsoundness. And defendants have neither alleged nor shown any fraud or injury. Code Cr. Proc. arts. 202, 203.
Bill No. 2. This bill was reserved to the action of the court in overruling the defendants' objection to the examination of the talesmen whose names were drawn from the tales jury box the third and last time it was produced and opened in court. The objection was made on the ground that an uncle of the prosecuting witness, who was also a member of the jury commission, had assisted the district attorney in selecting the ten jurors then in the jury box, and that this uncle of the aggrieved party, as a member of the jury commission, had assisted in placing one hundred names in the box from which the tales jurors were drawn. As soon as the objection was made and the trial judge ascertained the facts, he ordered the person complained of to retire from the bar of the court, which he did.
Counsel for defendants, in his argument, refers to the circumstance of which he complains, but he fails to point out wherein the defendants were injured thereby. The bill is untenable.
Bill No. 3. This bill was taken to the ruling of the trial judge wherein he refused to quash, on defendants' motion, the panel of the tales jurors drawn in the case. The facts on which the bill is based are essentially the same as the facts on which the preceding bills are based. We do not find any error in the ruling complained of.
Bill No. 4. The indictment on which defendants are prosecuted reads, omitting the formal parts, as follows, viz.:
"That one Rederick Courtney and one Lawrence McDonald, present acting together, aiding, assisting and abetting each other * * * on the 5th day of March in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and twenty-nine * * * wilfully, unlawfully and feloniously did conspire with each other to commit and procure to be committed the crime of burglary, the breaking and entering the house of Frank Kreis, in the night time, with the felonious intent of abduction of Vera Kreis for the purpose of unlawful sexual intercourse, she being a...
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State v. Carter
...may receive evidence of acts and declarations of one of them before the evidence of a conspiracy has been offered. See State v. Courtney, 170 La. 314, 127 So. 735 (1930); State v. Dundas, 168 La. 95 121 So. 586 (1929); State v. Fernandez, 157 La. 149, 102 So. 186 (1924); State v. Lebleu, 13......
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State v. Cryer
...may receive evidence of acts and declarations of one of them before the evidence of a conspiracy has been offered. See State v. Courtney, 170 La. 314, 127 So. 735 (1930); State v. Dundas, 168 La. 95, 121 So. 586 (1929); State v. Fernandez, 157 La. 149, 102 So. 186 (1924); State v. Lebleu, 1......
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State v. Evins
...all co-conspirators since said acts or declarations are deemed to be the acts or declarations of all co-conspirators. State v. Courtney, 170 La. 314, 127 So. 735 (1930). Consequently, the acts of each co-conspirator are admissible in proving not only the existence of the criminal conspiracy......
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... ... See State v. Gebbia, 121 La. 1083, 47 So. 32; State v. Hill, 135 La. 625, 65 So. 763; State v. Gani, 157 La. 235, 102 So. 319 and State v. Courtney, 170 La. 314, 127 So. 735 ... Bill No. 25 was reserved to the denial of appellant's motion for a new trial and his supplemental motion for a new trial. The motion for a new trial was based on four grounds--(1) that the verdict was contrary to the law and the evidence, which ... ...