The Waterbury Democrat., 1941-03-07


 does tend to prove that each and all of the groups are acIing pursuant to Q etngie unified scheme and that, therefore, all of. the various groups together make up. Q single general conspiracy"
 Guilt or Innocence
 The court charged that: Under tho Constitution no persCn accused 0s crime may be compelled to tess tify, and under tl:e law as 1t is to- day an accused person may either testify or not, aS he sees fit. In considering the question of the guilt or innocence of an accused person however, the jury may take into consideration the fact that the acc cused did not testify and thereby, among other things did not submit himself to croSs- From the fact that the accvsed has either neglected or ref,lsed to testify, the jury may draw any inference as to his guilt which IS reas0l able under all the circuinsts hces." The de- 4endanta claim tha' this charge was 6 most harmful ,vlation of the; con- stitutiollal rights of thnse of them who did not testify and was Q vio- lation of the provisions of 640O of the General Statutes that: "The ne. glect or refusal of an accused party to testify shall not be commented upon to the court or jury"
 The charge of the court with ref- erence to the hiring by the defend- ant Hayes of the defendant P,lrdie, a private detective, was justified by the claim of the state that this was for the purpose of getting informa ton in regard to certain Waterbury people. for use by Hayes and Leary in preventing exposure of the con- spiracy, and that he received H. legal, corrupt and fraudulent pay- icents of money from the city there for, all in pursuance to and in furtherance of the conspiracy. The instruction was clearly warranted by the finding and the possible le- gal significance to be attached to the incident, if found proven, was sufficiently explained in other parts of the charge. The reference to facts found proven as coming "di- rectly from the mouths of the va rtous witnesses" could not have lea the jury to disregard the great mass of documentary evidence which had been offered. When read with the charge as a whole, the instructions of the court as to inferences to be drawn by the jury were not open to attack on the ground that they did not specifically charge as to their right to draw inferetces favorable to the defendants. The charge of the court that the function of state- ments made by certain of the witt nesses before the grand jury which were different from their testimony in court was not to prove the truth of the facts stated, but only to irn- peach the credibility of witnesses, was correct. State v. Rhoads, 8i Ohio St. 397, 9l N. E. 186; Bom- ster v. Kenney, 116 Conn. 290 164 All. 639; Branford Trust Go. V. Pru- dential Ins. O., 102 Conn. 48l, 485, i2s All. 379; Wheeler v. Thomas, 67 Conn. 577, 580, 35 All. 499; 70 0. J. 107l. This did not constitute re- trial of case between the same parties. That the statement was made before the grand jury and was under oath affords no reason for departing from the rule stated. In the Rhoads case the statement in question was given by the witness while testifying before the grand jury, and in the Bomster case 1t was made in court in another pro. ceeding. The instruction that the absence of motive on the part of the defendants might well tend to raise a reasonable doubt as to their guilt Is not erroneous on the ground that the court should have charged that the absence of @ motive would tend to prove innocence; under the instructions given, If the jury found there was reasonable doubt as to the guilt of the defendants, they would have to find them not guilty, and the effect of the charge is the same as though the court had used the language claimed by the defendants. The instructions given to the jury just before they retired, that when they returned to report they should be prepared to answer either guilty or not guilty as to each of the de- fendants, was In accord with time- honored instruction in this juris- diction in criminal cases where more than one accused are on trial to- gether; nor could 1t be construed as precluding the right of the jury to report disagreement, or as in. tegfering with the right of each jur- or to each his own conclusion on the evidence. l. lE
 Instructions
 Tn short, 1t fully met the reuuire- snents of our law that the court in charging the jury in e, criminal case shall give to them such instruc- tions as may be required to enable them to understand the nature of the offense charged and the ques- tions which they are to decide, to weigh the evidence applicable to such questions, and to intelligently decide them State V. Long, 72 Conn. 39, 43, 43 All. 493. There was no error in the courts charge to the jury"
 SAAC OA t2AS OpJSCtAOAAS AEGQuc1ltly made, particularly in the earlier days of the trial, was that records and evidence of acts and statements of the defendants were admitted generally before there had been prirna facie proof of the conspiracy. The state mainly relied for proof of the conspiracy upon @ great mass of cirCumgtantiAl evidence F,nr tha trial court to have attempted to segregate that which tended to prove the conspiracy from that which would affect certain of the defendants only by reason of the fact that prina facie proof of the conspiracy had been made, both types of evidence often coming erection.
 from the same witnesses, would have been all but impossible, and the trial court might well have con- sidered that such an attempt would