State v. Merra

• Decision Date: 13 January 1927
• Citation: 135 A. 546
• Parties: STATE v. MERRA et al.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

135 A. 546

STATE

v. MERRA et al.

Court of Errors and Appeals of New Jersey.

Jan. 13, 1927.

Error to Court of Oyer and Terminer, Essex County.

Salvatore Merra and another were convicted of murder, and they bring error. Application that court of oyer and terminer be required to certify whether verdict is accurately stated in printed case granted.

See, also, 134 A. 558.

Alexander Simpson, of Jersey City, for plaintiffs in error.

John C. Bigelow, of Newark, Prosecutor of the Pleas, for the State.

PER CURIAM. The plaintiffs in error were tried in the court of oyer and terminer of the county of Essex upon an indictment charging them with murder, and they were each found guilty of murder in the first degree. Upon this finding, the trial court imposed sentence of death upon Merra and life imprisonment upon his codefendant, Rannelli, pursuant to the construction put by the court upon the jury's verdict. A writ of error from this court was thereupon sued out, and in the printed case which has been submitted to us, and which purports to be the return of the trial court, made pursuant to the command of the writ, there appears the following statement of the verdict rendered by the jury:

"We find the defendant Salvatore Merra guilty of murder in the first degree, and the defendant Salvatore Rannelli guilty of murder in the first degree and recommend life imprisonment at hard labor."

One of the reasons submitted by Merra as a ground for reversing the judgment pronounced against him is that the imposition of the death penalty was not justified by the verdict, the jury having as a part thereof recommended life imprisonment at hard labor as the punishment to be imposed both upon him and his codefendant, Hannelli, and the transcription of the verdict, as printed in the state of the case submitted to us, is appealed to in support of this contention. In this situation of the case, the prosecutor of the pleas, assuming that the construction thus put upon the verdict, as printed in the state of the case, is justified by the wording and punctuation thereof, has moved for a requisition by this court upon the court of oyer and terminer of Essex county, calling upon the latter to certify whether the transcription of the verdict as thus printed is an accurate statement of the finding of the jury, and, if not, then what that verdict in fact was. The application is based upon the assertion that the transcription is erroneous if the construction sought to be put upon it...