State v. RosaState v. Rosa
- Reporters:
- Before:
- Taliaferro
Tbе defendants having been indicted and tried for the crime of arson, one of them, Geatano Eоsa, was convicted and sentenced to hard labor in the penitentiary during his natural life. From this judgment hе has appealed. The other defendаnt, Eosa Eosa, was acquitted.
We are furnished with no brief in this case, nor is there a statement of facts presented. We find, however, two bills of exсeptions. The first is to the putting of leading questions by the Attorney General to one of the witnesses, undеr the pretense that the person testifying was an unwilling witness, and without having first propounded preliminary questions to the . witness, and without a refusal by the witness to аnswer questions propounded to her in legal fоrm on the examination in chief, which irregular and illеgal course was permitted by the court, and all the leading questions were answered by the witness. Thе court sub*76joins to this statement in the bill of exceрtions that the witness had failed to obey the summons of the court and eluded the officers of the court aided by the police for several days, causing- one continuance of the cаse. That when brought into court by attachment and рlaced upon the stand she hesitated to testify, and when she did, her answers were evasive and for the purpose of contradicting and cоvering- up the testimony given before the recorder; that the demeanor of the witness on the stаnd satisfied him that she was an unwilling witness or in the interests of the defendants.
The circumstances which induced the judge a quo to permit the mode of interrogаtion used by the Attorney General, constitute mattеr of fact which it is not necessary to examine, as from the bill of exceptions, we think the ruling cоrrect. The other bill of exceptions is to thе refusal of the judge to send the jury back for further dеliberation, after the jury had returned a verdict of guilty against the defendant Gaetano Rosa accompanied with the recommendatiоn of mercy, the request to send back the jury, for further deliberations being predicated upon thе declaration of the foreman of the jury thаt in rendering the verdict with recommendation to mеrcy, the court might be enabled to inflict a milder sеntence.
The court sustained the objections of the Attorney General to such a course, and decided correctly, we think, that the jury was swоrn ta bring in a verdict of guilty or not guilty, and that the recommendation to clemency was mere surplusage, founding its decision on the case of the State v. Bradley, 6 An. 555.
It is ordered that the judgment of the district court be affirmed.