96 A. 411 | Conn. | 1916
Lead Opinion
After the verdict in this case had been returned by the jury and accepted by the court, the attorney for the accused presented to the court a copy of a newspaper, stating that it had been found in the jury-room, and that he wished to protest against sentence in the case upon the ground that the newspaper contained an attack upon Italians, Irish and Catholics. Several reasons of appeal are based upon the court's action in accepting the verdict and rendering judgment in the case after attention had thus been called to the finding of this newspaper in the jury-room. There was no evidence that any of the jurymen had seen the newspaper, and upon inquiry all of them stated that they had not seen it and knew nothing about it. If, as thus stated by them, they had not seen the paper, they could not have been prejudiced or influenced thereby against the accused, and he was not harmed by its being in the jury-room. The court, therefore, committed no error, after it had satisfied itself that none of the jurors had any knowledge of the contents of the newspaper, in proceeding to pass sentence upon the accused in accordance with the verdict.
The finding shows that the State produced evidence tending to prove that after some words had passed between the accused and the complainant, Bartolotta, the former stabbed the latter in the shoulder, that the latter then stabbed the accused and turned and went away from him, and that the accused pursued him for some distance until Bartolotta fell, when the accused came up to him and stabbed him in the side and back. The accused claimed and offered evidence to prove that he pursued Bartolotta through excitement for a few steps when the latter turned, as the accused thought, to come back and further assault him, whereupon in self-protection he ran for Bartolotta and struck him as he fell, and that the blows were struck in self-defense. *81 The court charged the jury clearly as to the law relating to self-defense as applicable to the evidence and claims of the parties, and no complaint is made as to the charge as given. Error is assigned upon the court's refusal to charge certain requests which were filed by the accused. So far as these requests contained statements of law applicable to the facts in evidence, they were covered by the charge as given, and the accused was not harmed by the court's neglect to charge in the precise language of the requests. These assignments of error have not been much pressed upon the argument.
The ground of error most insisted upon in the case is that which relates to the court's action in permitting the State, against the objection of the accused, to prove from the record in the case that he had previously in the Superior Court entered a plea of guilty to the same information upon which he was being tried, but had withdrawn that plea by leave of court and entered a plea of not guilty. The accused objected to the admission of this testimony upon the ground that it was not proper to go before the jury, claiming that the plea of guilty had been entered by reason of a misunderstanding between his attorney and the State's Attorney, and also upon the ground that it was immaterial to the issue and injurious to his rights. The objection was overruled and the evidence admitted.
The record shows that the case was tried to the jury at the same term to which the information was brought, so that the leave to enter the plea of guilty and to withdraw it and to enter the plea of not guilty, was given by the same judge who presided at the trial of the case. A court will not allow a party to enter a plea of guilty until satisfied that it is freely made and that the party making it understands its purport and effect; for the entry of such a plea is in effect a conviction and the equivalent of a finding of guilty by a jury. State v. *82 Willis,
But we have been referred to some authorities which hold that evidence of a plea of guilty which the court refused to accept, or which had been entered and afterward withdrawn and a plea of not guilty entered, is not admissible against the accused. In People v. Ryan, *84
Had the accused in the present case, called as a witness in his own behalf, testified that, being stabbed by Bartolotta, he pursued him in the heat of passion and stabbed him intending to kill him, and later, upon *86 leave to change his testimony, had testified that he only pursued his assailant for a few steps when the latter turned upon him and he killed him in self-defense, the fact that he first gave evidence corroborating the State's claim of guilt would be a fair matter of comment for the State's Attorney in his argument to the jury, and a proper matter for the jury to consider in determining the weight to be given to the claim of the accused. For the same reason the conduct of the accused in pleading guilty and later changing his plea, was a proper matter to be brought to the jury's attention by the evidence objected to.
We do not understand that the cases referred to, and a few others of like import which may be found, are in conflict with this view. They seem to be decided upon the view that the evidence was offered and received as evidence of a judicial confession which was conclusive of the guilt of the accused. And Wharton, in the paragraph to which we have referred, is speaking of judicial confessions, and we understand the paragraph to go no further than to say that when such confessions by plea of guilty have been withdrawn, they are no longer conclusive against the accused and cannot be used in evidence as judicial confessions against him. However that may be, we are of the opinion that the fact that a plea of guilty was entered and afterward withdrawn may be given in evidence against an accused for the purposes which we have indicated and for which it is manifest such fact was offered and received in the present case.
There is no error.
In this opinion BEACH and GREENE, Js., concurred.
Dissenting Opinion
The conclusion reached by the majority supporting the ruling of the trial court *87 permitting the State, against the accused's objection, to prove, from the record in the case, that he had previously in the Superior Court entered a plea of guilty to the same information upon which he was being tried, is in my opinion unsound in principle, unfair in its treatment of the accused, and contrary to the law.
The State, as I understand the finding, in the presentation of its case in chief offered in evidence the record of the Superior Court showing that the accused had pleaded guilty to the same information on which he was being tried, and had subsequently, by leave of the court, withdrawn that plea and entered a plea of not guilty. To this offer the accused objected, because (1) the former plea had been entered through a misunderstanding between him and the State's Attorney, and (2) it was immaterial and injurious to his rights. The overruling of these objections and the admission of this offer is assigned as a principal reason of appeal.
The State urges in its brief that the previous plea of guilty was admissible as a confession of guilt; that such a plea is an admission that the accused is guilty of the crime charged. The plea of guilty is a judicial confession — in effect it is conviction. The court should not allow an accused to enter a plea of guilty until satisfied that the plea is made freely, and with understanding, and without misapprehension. State v.Willis,
The State's Attorney does not suggest that the fact that the accused made this plea is admissible apart from its evidential value in proof of a confession. The opinion of the court says that it was by all the parties treated as an extra-judicial confession or admission. I do not so understand the record, and I cannot help but feel that such a claim is illogical and overlooks the basis upon which all such evidence is admitted. The *89 statement made by the accused in open court confesses the crime and proves the record. It is a judicial confession, because made before the court. The record is conclusive evidence of it and the only method of proving it, and hence of proving what the accused did. The fact that a plea of guilty was made in court is not to be treated as an admission. The admission relates to facts that do not involve a criminal intent, while the confession is an acknowledgement of guilt. An admission is made against interest, while a confession must be affirmatively shown to have been made under conditions which would not induce a false statement. 2 Wharton on Criminal Evidence, § 622a.
Considerations of fairness would seem to forbid a court permitting a plea to be withdrawn for cause, and at the next moment allowing the fact of the plea having been made, to be admitted in evidence, with all its injurious consequences, as an admission or confession of guilt by the accused. The withdrawal is permitted because the plea was originally improperly entered. No untoward judicial effect should result from the judicial rectification of a judicial wrong. The majority hold that the fact that the former plea may be explained will be a sufficient protection to the accused. Such a ruling places upon him a burden of disproving a fact which does not exist, for the withdrawal eradicated it. It brings him before the jury under the heavy cloud of suspicion created by his plea of guilty, when he is entitled to come before the jury with the presumption of innocence shielding him. It makes him prove again that his plea was wrongly entered, when that fact has already been judicially ascertained and settled by a court of competent jurisdiction and cannot be opened unless a higher court finds an abuse of that court's discretion.
I cannot find, as the majority do, justification for *90 this ruling in the practice of permitting, on appeal from a lower court, the plea of guilty to be proved in the higher court as an admission there against him. What the accused did in such a case in the trial court he did voluntarily, so far as that record shows. What he then did on the appeal he did voluntarily. At no stage has he been wronged, or a court been asked to rectify his inadvertent action and complied with his request. At no point has the plea in the trial court been withdrawn by order of court upon a finding that it had been wrongly entered.
The instances where this issue has been decided are very infrequent, although, it must be allowed, the instances where evidence of this character might have been presented must have been many. It is more probable either that prosecutors have withheld or courts have excluded such offers, than that they have been admitted and no redress been sought. Whenever the courts have spoken, or authors upon legal subjects have written, so far as I have been able to ascertain, they have agreed in condemning the admission against an accused of his withdrawn plea of guilty. 2 Wharton on Criminal Evidence, § 638, p. 1326, says: "Where a plea of guilty is withdrawn by the permission of the court, it is not binding as a confession, nor can it be used as evidence." 2 Ency. of Pleading Practice, p. 779, says: "The effect of withdrawing a plea is to render it functus officio, and it cannot afterwards be given in evidence against the accused." In 8 Ruling Case Law, § 77, p. 112, the authors say: "It is hardly necessary to state that where a plea of guilty has been withdrawn and a plea of not guilty entered, the plea of guilty is not admissible in evidence against the accused." 12 Cyc. p. 426, says: "A voluntary offer by the accused before trial to plead guilty on terms to the offense charged is competent as his admission, but a *91
withdrawn plea of guilty in place of which a plea of not guilty has been substituted by leave of the court is not competent as an admission." Abbott's Trial Brief (Criminal Causes, 2d Ed.) p. 314, says: "A plea which has been held invalid, and superseded by the plea on which the accused is tried, cannot be read in evidence against him." In People v. Ryan,
The court in the case at bar permitted the plea to be withdrawn for reasons which satisfied its discretion. In each case the plea never should have been entered. When withdrawn there was no plea. The cases then stood practically alike, with this difference, in the one *93 case the facts surrounding the plea were matter of record, in the other dependent on oral testimony. But the admissibility of the facts of each plea is governed by the same identical principles, and the ruling of the Missouri court seems to me sound in law and wholesome in practice. Commonwealth v. Lannan, 95 Mass. (13 Allen) 563, 569.
In my judgment the ruling was erroneous and material, and a new trial should be granted.
In this opinion RORABACK, J., concurred.