In re Jorge

10 Alaska 633
CourtDistrict Court, D. Alaska
DecidedOctober 19, 1945
DocketNo. A-3859
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 10 Alaska 633 (In re Jorge) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Alaska primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
In re Jorge, 10 Alaska 633 (D. Alaska 1945).

Opinion

DIMOND, District Judge.

On August 14, 1945, in the midst of considerable excitement over the news that the Japanese had finally accepted the terms of unconditional surrender laid down at the Potsdam Conference, Shirley Jorge, a resident of Anchorage, Alaska, was convicted by a jury in a court of the Commissioner and Justice of the Peace, hereinafter called the justice, for the Anchorage Precinct, Third Division, Territory of Alaska, of the crime of keeping a bawdy-house, a misdemeanor, and she was thereupon adjudged and sentenced to pay a fine of $500 and to be imprisoned in jail for the term of six months.

[635]*635It appears that the trial proceedings were completely regular, except as to receiving the verdict of the jury, and for error in that respect it is claimed that the judgment is void and that the petitioner should be discharged in this proceeding.

There is little dispute as to just what happened. In the constricted quarters of the justice, a small room plentifully equipped with chairs is used for jury trials. This is the only room available in which the jury may consider of their verdict, and so on this occasion, as on many others, at the conclusion of the hearing of testimony and the arguments of counsel, the justice and the attorneys and all other persons except the members of the jury left the room and the doors were closed. One door of this room, which may for convenience be called the jury room, gives access to one of the halls of the building. Another door of the jury room opens into another room which is used as the main office of the justice. In this office is a large counter and some desks and chairs and other office furniture. One end of the counter, around which persons musí pass to enter the main part of the office, is within a few feet (described in the testimony as approximately five feet) of the door leading into the jury room. Another door leads from the main office to the hallway.

When the case was submitted to the jury and the jury was left alone in the jury room behind closed doors, the petitioner and her counsel remained in the main office of the commissioner. While both the petitioner and her counsel were not present at all times thereafter until the verdict was rendered, it appears that one was always present and both of them were present during most of the time. Neither the petitioner nor her counsel expressly waived right to be present when the jury should render its verdict, but neither expressly notified the justice that he or she wished to be present on that occasion. Nothing in the record indicates an implied waiver of the petitioner or her counsel to be present upon rendition of verdict.

[636]*636The jury did not deliberate long. When the verdict had been arrived at one of the members of the jury came to the door of the room leading into the justice’s main office and said some word or made some sign to the justice who thereupon went into the jury room without notifying or attempting to notify the petitioner or her counsel or anyone else that the jury had arrived at a verdict. It may be that the justice did not know that a verdict had been so arrived at when she went into the jury room, but in any event after the justice entered the jury room she was informed that a verdict had been arrived at and the verdict was delivered to her. Shortly thereafter, at the suggestion or upon inquiry of one of the jurors, the justice discharged the jury, no one but the justice and the members of the jury being then present.

It appears that not until after the jury was discharged and some of them had left the room did the petitioner or her counsel know that the verdict had been delivered. Petitioner’s counsel made protest and filed, first, motion in arrest of judgment, and, second, motion to set aside judgment, both of which were denied. Thereupon, petitioner’s counsel also gave oral notice of appeal and appeal was taken to the district court. The transcript on appeal was filed in the district court on August 18th.

It is urgently insisted by counsel for the petitioner that the judgment is a nullity because the verdict was not rendered and delivered in accordance with the provisions of law, and therefore any judgment based upon it is void.

Compiled Laws of Alaska 1933, in the chapter entitled, “Criminal Actions in Justices’ Courts”, contains explicit provision with respect to the rendition of judgment in a justice’s court. Section 5691 reads as follows: “When, the jury have agreed upon a verdict they must deliver the same to the justice publicly, who shall enter it in his docket.” (Italics supplied.)

It is suggested by petitioner’s counsel that other provisions of law govern in such cases. In Compiled Laws of [637]*637Alaska 1933, also embraced in the same chapter, section 5678 provides as follows: “A criminal action in a justice’s court is commenced and proceeded in to final determination, and the judgment therein enforced, in the manner hereinbefore provided, except as in this chapter otherwise specially provided.”

In the chapter of our code making provision for the conduct of criminal trials in the district eour* we find fir-following: “Sec. 5339. When the jurors agree upon their verdict they must be conducted into court by the officer having them in charge; and before the verdict is accepted, the jury may be polled at the request of either the United States attorney or the defendant.”

Accordingly, the petitioner claims to have been deprived of a substantial right by not being given an opportunity to poll the jury. Moreover it is asserted that since admittedly the justice did not call the roll of the jury immediately before the delivery of the verdict there is no positive assurance that every member of the jury was present when the verdict was rendered, although the foreman of the jury, at the hearing in this proceeding, testified that all members of the jury were so present when the verdict was delivered to the justice, and there is no contradictory evidence.

Whether or not the- provisions of section 5339 above quoted apply to criminal trials in a justice’s court in Alaska, it is clear beyond dispute that in the instant case the verdict was not delivered to the justice “publicly” as required by the provisions of section 5691 also set out above. No good purpose would be served by assembling here the various definitions of the word “publicly”, for it is plain that as used in section 5691 the lawmakers intended that the verdict should be delivered in a place to which the public at least had access and which was not restricted to the use of the jury and the justice.

It has been suggested in argument that the place was a public place and that therefore the verdict was ren[638]*638dered publicly as required by law, but that contention cannot be sustained. It is to be remembered that the room in which the verdict was rendered was then in use as a jury room, that is to say, a room used exclusively by the jury in considering the case and in arriving at a verdict. It would have been an act so grossly improper as possibly to constitute contempt of court for the petitioner or her counsel to enter that room after the case had been finally submitted to the jury except upon the invitation or permission of the court itself.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Taggard v. State
500 P.2d 238 (Alaska Supreme Court, 1972)
City of Kodiak v. Valtman
17 Alaska 123 (D. Alaska, 1957)
City of Seldovia v. Lund
138 F. Supp. 382 (D. Alaska, 1956)
City of Anchorage v. Anderson
13 Alaska 413 (D. Alaska, 1951)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
10 Alaska 633, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/in-re-jorge-akd-1945.