State v. Reidler

136 A. 512, 5 N.J. Misc. 347, 1927 N.J. Sup. Ct. LEXIS 244
CourtSupreme Court of New Jersey
DecidedMarch 12, 1927
StatusPublished

This text of 136 A. 512 (State v. Reidler) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of New Jersey primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Reidler, 136 A. 512, 5 N.J. Misc. 347, 1927 N.J. Sup. Ct. LEXIS 244 (N.J. 1927).

Opinion

Per Curiam.

The plaintiff in error was tried and convicted in' the Morris County Court of Oyer and Terminer on an indictment for [348]*348conspiracy, and judgment having been pronounced on such conviction, a writ of error was sued out of this court by the plaintiff in error, to remove to it the record and proceedings for review. The case is before us not only on strict writ of error, but also under the one hundred and thirty-sixth section of the Criminal Procedure act. There are eighty-five assignments of errors and seventy-one specifications of causes for reversal. Many of the assignments and specifications are founded upon alleged errors which are precisely of the same character, involving the same legal questions as were presented to, and decided by, the Supreme Court in State v. Bolitho, not yet officially reported in the state reports, but is reported in 5 N. J. Adv. R. 251.

The indictment on which the plaintiff in error was convicted sets forth in the first count that he, together with Bolitho, who was at the time prosecutor of the pleas of Morris county, and Joseph Canty, wickedly, falsely, knowingly, corruptly and unlawfully, did combine, unite, confederate, conspire and bind themselves by agreement to pervert and obstruct justice and the due administration of the laws of the State of New Jersey, to wit, the “Prohibition Enforcement act,” by suppressing, concealing, stifiling and dismissing a complaint against Canty, and to forebear and refrain from prosecuting him, &c. The indictment then sets forth overt acts committed in pursuance of the alleged unlawful agree7 ment.

The second count alleges the conspiracy to be to pervert and obstruct justice and the due administration of the law of the State of New Jersey, to wit, the “Prohibition Enforcement act,” by unlawfully selling, 'bartering, transporting, importing, delivering, furnishing, manufacturing and possessing intoxicating liquor, &c., and to protect the said Canty from prosecution by reason of any violation of the said “Prohibition Enforcement act,” &c.

The third count is similar in all respects to the second.

There was a challenge in writing to Mr. Justice Parker, sitting in the cause, on the ground of interest and bias. The state filed a demurrer to the challenge. This challenge was [349]*349based upon the same ground as was presented and ruled upon by the judge in State v. Bolitho, supra, in which case the Supreme Court sustained the legal propriety of the judicial action of the trial judge, in overruling the challenge, and as the facts, and the legal question springing from such facts, are the same here as those passed upon by the Supreme Court, in the quoted case, the matter is no longer open for debate in this court.

There was a motion to quash the indictment on various grounds, namely, that the indictment was found and presented by an illegally constituted grand jury, in that the members thereof were not selected and summoned under the law providing the manner in which grand jurors shall be selected and summoned, that the grand jury which found and presented the indictment against the plaintiff in error was, under the law, an unauthorized body because the members thereof were selected and summoned by elisors appointed by the trial judge for that purpose, and for which appointment of elisors and selecting and summoning of grand jurors there was no authority in law; that Mr. Jayne was without proper authority to appear before the grand jury for the purpose of presenting the evidence and for the prosecution of the indictment: that the clerk of the grand jury was illegally appointed and, hence, unlawfully in the grand jury room at the finding of the indictment; that one of the elisors was disqualified because he was a counselor-at-law; that only twenty-two members were sworn as grand jurors, &c. The trial judge denied the motion. These objections made to the present indictment are the same as. were made to the indictment in the case of State v. Bolitho, supra, and received the consideration of the Supreme Court, which tribunal held the objections were without legal force and sustained the judicial action of the trial court in denying the motion to quash the indictment on the grounds presented. This decision is controlling here.

So, also, it was determined by the Supreme Court, in the Bolitho case, that it was not a ground on which error could be assigned where the trial judge refuses a writ of certiorari to review an indictment for insufficiency. The motion to quash [350]*350being addressed to the discretion of the court, is not appeal-able. In the ease sub judice there was also a motion to quash the indictment on the ground that the counts charging conspiracy were duplicitous; that the overt acts set out were not acts which were sufficient to support a valid indictment. The refusal of the motion to quash on these latter grounds is not reviewable under the one hundred and thirty-sixth section of the Criminal Procedure act and is not reviewable on error since the motion to quash, as has been already stated, is addressed to the discretion of the court, and since there was no motion to direct a verdict on the ground of the alleged defects in the indictment and no motion made in arrest of judgment for the same reason, either of which motions, if denied, would have made a basis for an assignment of error on the record, the matter is not properly before us for review.

There was a motion for a severance which was consented to by counsel of defendant. The defendant was then put upon trial alone.

Now, as to the plea of second jeopardy. The record discloses that after the plaintiff in error was put on trial and considerable testimony had been taken, that Canty, one of the defendants, but who was not put on trial, and who became a witness for the state, lunched with one of the jurors while the case was in progress, and Canty paid for the juror’s lunch; that this matter was called to the attention of the court, and after the hearing, and the facts being proven, counsel of defendant made this statement to the court: “If your Honor please, with all respect to the court and to the time and expense that has been consumed, it seems to me, the defendant, in the emergency, should have the benefit of a mistrial in view of what has occurred. I am sorry.” The trial judge discharged the jury from further consideration of the case. The case was adjourned to the following day, and before a new jury was empaneled, counsel on behalf of the plaintiff in error filed a plea of second jeopardy, and waived the filing of a traverse, in writing, by the state in reply to the plea, and consented that it be considered that the plea was traversed by the state, and that the issue, as to whether or not [351]*351the defendant’s plea was efficacious, in law, should be tried and determined by the court on the facts, as they appear of record, relating to the mistrial and discharge of the jury. The trial judge overruled the plea, and we think properly so. According to the record, a mistrial was sought and asked for by defendant’s counsel, obviously, stirred by the thought that the testimony, which Canty, a co-defendant, might give as a witness for the state, and who had lunched with one of the jurors of the panel, trying the defendant, and for whose lunch Canty paid, would seriously jeopardize the liberty of the defendant, so far as that juror was concerned.

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Bluebook (online)
136 A. 512, 5 N.J. Misc. 347, 1927 N.J. Sup. Ct. LEXIS 244, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-reidler-nj-1927.