Commonwealth v. Lutz
Commonwealth v. Lutz
Opinion of the Court
John Lutz was accused of the murder of his wife. He was indicted for the crime with which he was charged, and on the trial of the case he was convicted of murder of the first degree. He was not sentenced when he made, through his counsel, an application for a new trial. This application resulted in a compliance with defendant’s request. It is not necessary to specify herein the circumstances which induced the court below to allow and make absolute the motion for another trial. This sufficiently appears in the record and in the opinion of the court granting a new trial. When the case was called for a retrial the prisoner filed a special plea of once in jeopardy, in which all the facts relating to the verdict on the former trial were set forth in detail. A jury was called and sworn according to law and the case was then proceeded with in due course. That the evidence in the case clearly warranted the verdict rendered by the jury admits of no reasonable doubt. A motion for another trial followed this verdict, but upon due consideration by the court the motion was deified. The denial of the motion was promptly followed by the sentence of the court.
Reference
- Cited By
- 7 cases
- Status
- Published
- Syllabus
- Criminal law—Murder—Twice in jeopardy—Constitutional law. A plea of twice in jeopardy presented at the second trial of an indictment for murder will not avail where it appears that at the first trial at the polling of the jury one of the jurors who had signed a verdict of guilty of murder in the first degree, started to explain that he had signed the verdict against his consent, when he was interrupted by the court and the verdict taken, and the trial judge subsequently grants a new trial on the ground that the verdict of the juryman whose explanation was interrupted might have been due to physical exhaustion.