State v. Lilja

• Decision Date: 20 April 1923
• Docket Number: No. 23410.,23410.
• Citation: 193 N.W. 178,155 Minn. 251
• Parties: STATE v. LILJA.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

155 Minn. 251

193 N.W. 178

STATE

v.LILJA.

No. 23410.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

April 20, 1923.

Appeal from District Court, Chisago County; J. N. Searles, Judge.

Reinor Lilja was convicted of murder, and he appeals. Affirmed.

Syllabus by the Court

The evidence justified the verdict.

Affidavits of jurors negativing charges of misconduct are admissible to support their verdict, but not to show that information obtained outside of court had no influence on their decision.

The right to object that a juror became disqualified by reading a newspaper article concerning the case may be waived; and where the defendant knows that such an article has been read by a juror, and thereafter proceeds with the trial to a final conclusion without objection, he waives his right to object.

The claim that public sentiment was so hostile to defendant that he could not have a fair trial is not justified by the record.

A letter to the deceased was correctly excluded because connected in no way with the commission of the crime or the one who committed it.

The remark of the court in the charge that the various witnesses were in position to observe and know the facts to which they testified was not prejudicial. W. E. Hewitt and Manly L. Fosseen, both of Minneapolis, for appellant.

C. L. Hilton, Atty. Gen., G. A. Youngquist, Asst. Atty. Gen., and S. Bernard Wennerberg, Co. Atty., of Center City, for the State.

TAYLOR, C.

The defendant was convicted of the murder of Peter M. Carlson and appeals from an order denying a new trial.

Peter M. Carlson, fifty-five years of age and unmarried, lived on a farm near Center City in Chisago county. His father, eighty-five years of age, blind, bedridden, and partially deaf, lived with him. His mother was dead. Hannah Turnquist, a cousin, had lived in the Carlson home as a member of the family during her childhood, but had left the farm and for some years had been a professional nurse. In response to a letter from Peter, she came to the farm on April 9, 1921, to assist in caring for his father. These three constituted the household at the time of the murder. On Sunday morning, April 17, 1921, Peter went to the barn to care for his stock. A little later, Hannah went to the father's room to care for him and prepare his breakfast, but found him asleep. Hearing some one at the door, she turned and was confronted by a man holding a revolver who wore a cap pulled low down over his head and ears and a pair of amber-colored automobile goggles which covered the upper part of his face. He ordered her to face the wall and put her hands behind her. She obeyed and he tied her hands behind her with a leather or rawhide thong. Compelling her to keep in front of him and lead him to Peter's room he made a search for money in that room and also in another room which Peter always kept locked, using a key which Peter had carried in his pocket to unlock it. When ready to leave, he removed the carbon connection from the telephone so it could not be used, untied Hannah's hands, told her that if she left the house in less than ten minutes she would be killed, that she would find Peter tied in the chicken house, and then backed out of the door and disappeared beyond the barn. Hannah waited a short time and then went to the chicken house but Peter was not there. She then went to the barn and called him but did not find him nor receive any answer. She then hurried to the house of the nearest neighbor. He had a telephone and other neighbors and the sheriff at Center City were notified. The neighbors found Peter's body in the basement of the barn at the foot of the hay chute. He had been killed with a .32-caliber bullet. On the following Friday defendant was arrested in the city of Minneapolis and taken to the jail in the city of St. Paul. There he was placed with eight others dressed in a similar manner and about his age and size, and Hannah Turnquist was then taken to the room and requested to look at them. She identified defendant as the man who committed the robbery.

That Peter M. Carlson was murdered by some one is beyond question and was conceded. The state presented many facts and circumstances pointing to defendant as the person who committed the deed, in addition to his positive identification by Hannah Turnquist as the man who committed the robbery. Defendant testified that he was at his home in the city of Minneapolis at the time the murder was committed, and was corroborated in this by his mother and other witnesses. The state presented testimony that both he and his mother had made statements as to his whereabouts at that time which did not accord with their testimony at the trial. The record is lengthy and we deem a rehearsal of the evidence unnecessary. We have examined it carefully and find it sufficient to make the question of his guilt or innocence a question for the jury.

Defendant's principal contention is that he did not have a fair and impartial trial because of misconduct on the part of the jury, and because of prejudice existing against him at Center City, the place of the trial. Center City is a small village. The Minneapolis Evening Journal was kept for sale at a store in the village. Toward the latter part of the trial and while defendant was putting in his defense, this paper contained an article entitled: ‘Talk while asleep barred as evidence.’ The article stated that defendant was alleged to have made a confession while asleep, and that it had been ruled out on the ground that a confession can only be made by a person in the full possession of his faculties and that a man asleep is not conscious. The paper was received at Center City in the evening. At the opening of court on the following morning, defendant's attorney called attention to the article. The court stated to the jury that his attention had been called to an article in the paper relating to what was claimed to have taken place in court on the trial, and asked if any of them had read it. One juror indicated that he had read it. The court stated:

‘Of course that article that appears there was an entire misstatement. Nothing had occurred in this court that was reported to have occurred. My object is to caution you against reading that paper until after you are discharged from this. It is really a very serious contempt of court, but I have no idea that any one connected with this trial is responsible. But to avoid any opportunity of your being prejudiced one way or the other, I want to caution you against it. (To the juror who had read it:) You shouldn't communicate to the other members of the jury what you remember to have been contained in that article.’

Defendant made no motion or suggestion of any kind, but at the conclusion of the court's remarks called a witness and proceeded with his evidence. On the motion for a new trial made after the return of the verdict he insisted that the reading of this article by one of the jurors was prejudicial misconduct entitling him to a new trial. Eleven of the jurors made an affidavit that they did not read the article nor know anything of its purport until after the trial had been completed, and that it was not mentioned or referred to in any way during their deliberations. The juror who had read the article made an affidavit that he had read it; that he informed no other member of the jury of its contents; that it was not mentioned during the consideration of the case; and that after the court stated that it was not true he placed no reliance on it and dismissed it from his mind and did not permit...