64 Pa. Super. 395 | Pa. Super. Ct. | 1916
Opinion by
The appellant was, with Frederick G-. Anderson and Charles A. Stevens, convicted in the court below of having entered into a conspiracy with intent to cheat and defraud certain corporations, their stockholders and members. The testimony produced on the trial covers upwards of five hundred and fifty pages; we have here forty-nine printed pages of assignments of error, it is, therefore, apparent that it is impracticable to review the case in detail in this opinion. Such a review is, in our judgment, not at all necessary. The facts of the case are fully stated in the opinion of the learned judge of the court below refusing a new trial, which will appear in the report of this case.
The bill of indictment was laid before the grand jury by the district attorney upon his official responsibility, after first having obtained an order of the court below permitting him to do so. It is well settled that the district attorney is not required to set forth his reasons for presenting a bill in this manner. “It necessarily follows that, upon appeal, no presumption that the district attorney did not have valid reasons for proceeding In this mode arises from his refusal to set them forth upon the record, or to state them for the information of the defendants ......Viewing this as a district attorney’s bill, sent to the grand jury by that officer upon his official responsibility and by leave of court, we are unable to conclude from the record before ms that the action complained of was an abuse of discretion both manifest and flagrant”: Commonwealth v. Sharpless, 31 Pa. Superior Ct. 96; Commonwealth v. Ramsey, 42 Pa. Superior Ct. 25. The first and second specifications of error are overruled.
The specifications of error which are founded upon exceptions to the action of the court below in refusing to direct the jury to find a verdict of not guilty cannot be sustained. The evidence in the present case was strikingly similar to that considered by this court, under a
The specifications of error which complain of the admission of evidence during the trial, relating to the organization of the various corporations, the manner in which the business of efich was conducted, the contracts
On April 15, 1909, David W. Rothensies and F. G. Anderson, two of these defendants, together with another who is a citizen of Delaware caused to be incorporated under the laws of the State of Delaware, the Reading Life Insurance Company, Rothensies became the president of this company, a member of the board of directors and a member of the executive committee and so continued until late in the year 1911. Anderson became a director of this company and, on January 20, 1910, became its vice-president, and its general manager on January 18, 1912, retaining these offices until he resigned in March, 1912. ' This company continued under ; the direct control and dominion of Rothensies and An- : derson down until the time they resigned, shortly after
The appellant and his associates dominated the several corporations, but they were trustees for the innocent policyholders of the Mutual Life Insurance Company and the unsuspecting stockholders of the Corporation Funding and Finance Co. and the Reading Life Insurance Co. These contracts were at the very foundation of the scheme to defraud and the contracts and all that was done by the defendants under them in the management of the several corporations were properly admissible in evidence: Commonwealth v. Donnelly, 40 Pa. Superior Ct. 125; Commonwealth v. Sanderson, 40 Pa. Superior Ct. 473; Commonwealth v. Cotter, 55 Pa. Superior Ct. 554; Commonwealth v. Fulton, supra.
The specifications of error which refer to the admission in evidence of testimony as to the manner of the sales of life insurance and shares of stock to persons who became directors of the corporations are not well founded. This testimony disclosed that this appellant and Anderson in some cases both joining in the proposition to a man whom they wished to have as a director of the corporations would make him a proposition to sell him a bond of the Reading Mutual Life Insurance Co., a life insurance policy of said company and a number of shares of stock of the Corporation Funding and Finance Co., or the Reading Life Insurance Co. and take his note for the amount of the premium on the life insurance policy and the price of the shares of stock in the other corporations, agreeing that the purchaser should not be called upon to pay the note, but that he would be elected a director in the companies and be paid a salary, as director, of twenty-five dollars a month by each corporation, said salary and the dividends upon his stock in the funding and finance company to be credited upon the note until it was paid. It may be well to give a single in
The 16th and 19th specifications of error relate to evidence which affected only the defendant Stevens, relating to statements which he had made as to the standing of the companies. It was clearly established by other evidence that this appellant had made like representations. The evidence admitted under these specifications was offered for the purpose only of showing that Stevens was a party to the combination and its admission worked no injury to this appellant’s case. The specifications are .overruled.
The questions raised by the specifications of error which refer to the so-called second and third counts of
The twentieth specification of error is based upon the refusal of the court to withdraw a juror and continue the case because of certain language used by the district attorney in his closing argument to the jury. In disposing of a motion of this character the court below exercises a discretion which is reviewable only for abuse. There may be instances where the refusal to withdraw a juror because of an objectionable remark of the district attorney would be, in all the circumstances, an abuse of discretion, but the remarks complained of in the present case are not of that nature and it may be fairly held that they were called out by the appellant’s counsel, who it is admitted had said “The Commonwealth is bound to prove its case; we are not bound to prove our innocence ; and the fact that they took five days and a half to present their case, and we took one hour, shows to you, gentlemen of the jury, that they must have considered that they had a very hard job on hand.” This language upon the part of defendant’s counsel invited a retort in kind and the language of the district attorney in that retort is the subject of the complaint under this specification of error. What was' said by our Brother Orlady in Commonwealth v. Sarves, 17 Pa. Superior Ct. 407, is applicable in this instance: “While the printed record indicates that in the contest before the jury excessive earnestness on the part of contending counsel was displayed, and expressions of doubtful professional propriety were used, yet it is not clear that the manner of trial injuriously affected the defendant. Such forensic displays rarely affect the deliberate judgment of a jury, and in this case they were conducted under the supervision of the trial judge, who fully guarded the
The judgment is affirmed, and it is ordered that the defendant, the appellant, 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, that had not been performed at the time this appeal was made a supersedeas.