36 A.2d 337 | Pa. Super. Ct. | 1943
Argued November 15, 1943. Defendant was charged, in one indictment, with (1) pandering and (2) acceptance of bawd money. He was *412 found guilty as indicted, and was given one indeterminate sentence of imprisonment, within the limit fixed by law. Sections 513 and 515 of The Penal Code of 1939, P.L. 872. The girl he was charged with inducing, persuading, etc. to become an inmate of a house of prostitution was one Mary Galloway. The house of prostitution was located at No. 913 Western Avenue, Pittsburgh.
This appeal by him from that sentence raises two main questions:
(1) Whether his motion for a separate trial should have been sustained?
(2) Whether defendant should have been permitted to ask the Commonwealth's witness, Mary Galloway, on cross-examination, if she had been indicted with the defendant in a Federal Court for conspiracy to violate the Federal White Slave Traffic Act1?
(1) At the same session of court at which the appellant was indicted, true bills were also returned against Beatrice Mello, alleged to be the `madam' or proprietor of No. 913 Western Avenue, for (1) keeping a house of prostitution and (2) accepting bawd money, and against Helen Welker — an inmate of said house when Mary Galloway was placed there — who was charged with prostitution. As the same testimony needed for the conviction of Mello and Welker would be relevant and material in this appellant's trial, the Commonwealth called the indictments against the three defendants for trial at the same time. This appellant moved the court for a separate trial, which was refused. Verdicts of guilty were returned against all three defendants. Mello and Welker did not appeal.
We have had occasion to consider the consolidation of several indictments for trial in a number of recent cases and have ruled that it is largely a matter within *413 the sound discretion of the trial court, and where the indictments are closely related, his exercise of discretion will not be reversed unless it is clearly shown that the appellant defendant has been prejudiced or injured thereby.
In Com. v. Danaleczk et al.,
In Com. v. Weiner and Zvon,
In Com. v. McCord et al.,
Judge PARKER evidently used the word misdemeanor in the citation just quoted, not with the intention of limiting the consolidation of indictments for trial to misdemeanors, but because only misdemeanors were involved in that case. This is apparent from the fact that in two of the cases cited in his previous discussion of the matter, (Com. v. Valotta,
All of the evidence against the Mello woman and the Welker girl was relevant and material in the trial of this defendant, and most of the evidence in his case was relevant and material against them, especially, the Mello woman. He has no ground of complaint that some of the evidence against him may not have been relevant and material in their cases. They, only, could complain of that, and they have not done so. As the charges against this appellant were felonies, instructions as to costs in the misdemeanor cases were of no moment to him, and he could not be hurt by them.
We are satisfied that this appellant was not injured by the consolidation of the indictments for trial and that the court below was not guilty of abuse of discretion in refusing to order that appellant's case be separately tried.
(2) The court below committed no error in refusing to permit appellant's attorney to ask Mary Galloway, a witness for the Commonwealth, on cross-examination, if she was not under indictment in the Federal Court, along with him, for conspiracy to violate the White Slave Traffic Act.
It is the general rule in this Commonwealth that a witness cannot be asked on cross-examination, by way of attacking his credibility, whether he has not been arrested or indicted for some offense unrelated to the *416
case on trial. The matter is fully discussed in Com. v. Arcurio,
Of course, if the witness is under indictment for the same crime, or for a crime growing out of, or closely related to, the very offense for which the defendant is being tried, so as to form a part of the same occurrence or transaction, it is proper for the jury to know it, as bearing on the witness's interest in the immediate matter: Com. v. Alensky,
Furthermore, as stated by the court below, in its opinion refusing a new trial, the defendant was not, in any event, harmed by the ruling because, "aside from the technical fact of indictment, he was permitted to show all the material facts of the witness's involvement with the United States authorities."
The other matters presented by the appellant as grounds for a new trial require little discussion. There is no merit in either of them.
During the course of the trial it was reported to the trial judge that an anonymous telephone call had been received in the district attorney's office to the effect that a juror in the case had been approached. Thereupon, in the presence of counsel and the court reporter, the judge questioned each juror separately, the inquiry revealing no improper conduct on the part of any one; and, in his charge, the judge cautioned the jury that they were not to be influenced in any way, either for or against the defendant, or for or against the Commonwealth, by reason of the fact that he found, or believed, it necessary to interview them separately; that their answers were satisfactory, and, he believed, frank and truthful; and they were to proceed in their *418
deliberations as though those questions had not been asked, and decide the case solely and exclusively on what they heard in the court room. In Com. v. Deutsch,
In this case there was nothing definite affecting any juror — nothing but unconfirmed rumor from an anonymous source, and we think the trial judge's handling of it was, in the circumstances, beyond criticism.
The allegation that the trial judge showed bias against the defendant's counsel is without any substantial basis. When the court has ruled against the admission of certain evidence and counsel has his record made up for a review of that ruling, he should not keep on pressing the offer in other ways and forms; and the court is perfectly justified in telling him so. And the court was within its province in informing defendant's counsel that he had failed to prove on the trial material matters that he had told the jury in his opening address he would prove to their satisfaction.
The assignments of error are overruled. The judgment is affirmed, and it is ordered that the defendant appear in the court below at such time as he may be there called and that he be by that court committed until he has complied with the sentence or any part of it which had not been performed when the appeal in this case was made a supersedeas.