The defendant, who is a colored man, was indicted for a felonious assault on one Plenry Johnson, a white man, and upon arraignment and plеa of not-guilty was tried, convicted and sentenced to imprisonment in the state penitentiary for a term of three years. The difficulty between them arose over a game of cards for a bottle of bitters at the store of one Grillam, in Washington county, Missouri. Johnson received a number of cuts from a knife, a severe and dangerous oüe in the ab
We will first consider a question properly and duly preserved, and arising on the record, and which is urged here for a reversal, which is that a part of the panel from which the trial jury was selected were not summoned by the sheriff or other authorized officer, but by оne Stone, who was not a deputy, and who, acting at the request of the sheriff, sent him seven men to serve on the jury. Three or four of this seven cоmposed a part of the panel of twenty-four from which the twelve trial jurors
A very earnest protest is made by counsel for defendаnt against what they call the oppressive and “bulldozing” manner of the prosecuting attorney in his cross-examination of the witness, Gillam, but this is matter whiсh cannot well be preserved in the record, and must necessarily be left ordinarily to the cognizance and regulation of the trial cоurts. But in this connection the defendant also presents his objections and exceptions duly preserved to the action of the trial court, in allowing the state’s attorney to cross-examine the witness, Gillam, in regard to the evidence given by the witness before the grand jury. The' proseсuting attorney asked the witness if he testified before the grand jury, and, exhibiting a written paper, asked if the signature thereto was that of the witness, and whether the writing thus shown him was his evidence taken in this cause before the grand jury, and whether the same was correctly written down. The witness answered that thе signature was his, and that he supposed his evidence before the grand jury was correctly written down and set out in the paper. With this written evidenсe in his hands and in the presence of the jury, the prosecuting attorney was allowed -to ask the witness for the purpose of contradict
The question, then, is whether it was proper and competent for the purpose of impeaching and contradicting the witness, forthe prosecutihg • attorney to thus select and single out and repeat to the witness such particular sentences and statements as he saw fit, frоm the evidence before the grand jury and ask the witness if he did not testify to them. The general rule is that if the witness admits the writing to be his, as was done here, hе cannot be thus asked as to statements such as counsel may suggest are contained in it, but the writing itself must be read as the only competent evidence of the contents. 2 Greenl. on Ev., sec. 463; Romertz v. Bank, 49 N. Y. 577; Prewitt v. Martin, Admir,
Failing to see any error materially affecting the meiits of the case to the prejudice of the defendant, the judgment of the trial court is affirmed.