State v. Cooler
State v. Cooler
Opinion of the Court
The opinion of the Court was delivered by
The appellants were convicted of murder and sentenced to electrocution. There are 21 exceptions. Several of the exceptions raise the same questions, and, as they have not been separately stated, they need not be separately considered.
*100
The judgment is reversed, and a new trial ordered.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- State v. Cooler Et Al.
- Cited By
- 7 cases
- Status
- Published
- Syllabus
- 1. Criminal Law — Harmless Error — Examination of Jurors — Stenographic Notes. — Failure of the stenographer to take notes of the examination of jurors in a prosecution for homicide is not reversible error, where all the essential facts are before the Court. 2. Criminal Law — Withdrawal of Juror Showing Bias. — In a prosecution for homicide, where the jury was completed in the afternoon, the Court can, on the next morning before testimony is introduced, withdraw a juror, shown to have expressed an opinion that the defendant was guilty. 3. Courts — Erection—“Circuit” Courts — Constitutionality. — Under Const., art V, sec. 13, providing that the State shall be divided into Judicial Circuits, act February 14, 1916 (29 St. at Large, p. 688), creating 14 Judicial Circuits and leaving Charleston county alone in the Ninth Circuit, is valid, since the word “Circuit” means a division of the country for judicial business. 4. Criminal Law — Instructions — Evidence. — In a prosecution for homicide, it was error for the Court to refuse to charge that the jury must base its finding exclusively on the evidence taken in open Court, where the bias of one of the jurors had been brought in question. 5. Criminal Law — Evidence—Declarations of Codefendants. — Admission in evidence of declarations by a codefendant was not error, in a prosecution for homicide; the Judge having properly cautioned the jury that the statements were evidence only against the codefendant. 6. Criminal Law — Evidence—¡Declarations of Codefendants — Necessity as to Entire Statement. — Declarations by a codefendant as to the particulars of the crime must come out in their entirety, if any part is given. 7.. Criminal Law — Testimony of Codefendant — Admissibility. — A codefendant as a witness in a prosecution for homicide can testify though his testimony includes a statement that his codefendant did the killing. 8. Assault and Battery — Justification — Opprobrious Languaoe.— Opprobrious language does not justify an assault or furnish legal provocation.