Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 19, Number 91, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 July 1898 — JURORS MAY ATTEND CHURCH. [ARTICLE]

JURORS MAY ATTEND CHURCH.

Reliffou* Observance* No DiaquallScation in Murder Trials. The court of appeals, in its recent decision affirming judgment convicting Giuseppe Constantine of murder in the first degree in killing Pietro Galiotti at Utica, held, among other things, that the fact that during the trial the jury, in charge of officers, attended church, where the sermon was upon the prevalence of crime, was insufficient to justify a new trial, when it was shown that the officers, as soon as they discovered that anything might be said which could prejudice the jury, at once left the church with them, and that the trial judge thereupon stated to thejury, and at the close of the trial charged them, that no opinion uttered by the preacher should have the slightest weight upon their minds in forming their verdict. The evidence, says the New York Times, showed that the murder was committed in an affray, and that there was an interval of from half a minute to two minutes for deliberation while the defendant was threatening the fatal act. The court held it was not an error for the judge, in charging the jury upon the question whether there was sufficient time for such a degree of deliberation and premeditation as would constitute the crime, to illustrate a minute of time by his watch. The power conferred on the court of appeals by sections 528 and 542 of the code of criminal procedure to order a new trial in capital cases was not to be exercised upon the mere appearance of some error to which no exception was taken, unless the substantial rights of the accused could be seen to have been affected by it.