The Waterbury Democrat., 1941-03-07
Trial Conducted Fairly mpaay Declares State Supreme Court

witnesses before the grand jury be made available to them. The trial court, having been furnished a cop, of all the testimony, granted thA :. motions except as to certain DOT. tons of that examination which Y held were in no way concerned witS the affairs of the city of Waterbury or the direct examination. These portions were marked as an exhibit for Identification, but counsel foJ the defendants were not permitted to examine them. The purpose of the trial court was to make available to the defendants 50 much of the testi. mony of the grand jury as would serve their interests, but to preserW the secrecy of the grand jury pro. ceedings by withholding the rest ol 1t. The situation was unusual, but not without its analogies in cour' proceedings; thus, where documerS Is produced in court by the adverse party upon order, the trial court, having inspected the document, has Q discretion to permit or refuse in. spection by opposing counsel.
 Error Charged
 The defendants contend that there was error in admitting testimony as to certain statements of individual defendants after the claimed ter- imitation of the conspiracy. In the general brief of the defendants ref- erence is made to Q paragraph in the finding in which the investigator for the state related a series of in- cidents including statements by some of the defendants, but this single paragraph covers some twenty seven pages of the printed record and includes considerably more than that number of distinct rulings, and. very properly, 1t is not assigned as error. The information alleged that the conspiracy continued to the date of the information, May 10, 1888; there Is no finding that 1t had terminated before that date; and on the other hand, the state offered evidence in support of the allegation in the information that all the mat ters stated in the finding including the statements in questions, formed Q part of the conspiracy and were in pursuance of 1t. Consequently there Is no basis upon which we can hold that statements made by any of the defendants before that day were in fact made after the con- spiracy had terminated. Tn fact, the substantial objection in most in- stances seems to have been based, not on the fact that the conspiracy had terminated, but that no prima facie proof of g conspiracy had been offered when the testimony was ad- mitted. Moreover, in most instances the objections were that the testi- mony was not admissible at all, and such objections do not furnish ground for claiming that 1t should have been restricted as regards its effect on other defendants than those testified to have made the statements. State V. Buonomo, 88 Conn. 177. 183, 90 All. 225. In only instance of which complaint is made in the briefs where there was a request that the effect of the testi- mony be restricted to the defendants concerned, that request was for an instruction that the testi- mony did not affect the particular defendants represented by the att torney who made the objection and we have found that the state failed to prove them guilty. Obviously the general stipulation made early in the trial that an objection made by one defendant would avail all cannot be construed to include such 6 situa- ton as this, where the statements were clearly admissible as to some at least of the defendants. None of the rulings of this nature afford any sound ground upon which the defendants can properly base Q claim of error.
 Few Rulings Questioned M
 It is truly remarkable that in e trial lasting over so long a period as this, and so complicated in the issues presented and nature of the proof required, there are so few rulings that are even questionable. We can- not better sum up the results of our study than by quoting what we said in State V. Parker, 1lz Conn. 354, 370, 168 All. 797: "None of the rulings involve error which can fairly be regarded as harmful. Rare. ly, if ever, can studious and minute search of the record of a case of magnitude and complexity, tried, as was this, in extreme detail and with zeal and resourcefulness, fail to de. velop some point or ruling which may technically be open to question. We find none here which is not, at most, minor and inconsequential and the defendants could not have been so prejudiced thereby as to warrant or suggest new trial"
 Conspiracy, at the time of the o3s fense alleged in the information, was in this state 6 crime ct common law.
 The trial court imposed sen. teice upon several of the defendants of Imprisonment for @ period of more than five but not exceeding fifteen years. It is contended that it could not properly sentence the accused under the law as amended, which became effective only after the conspiracy was alleged to have begun. The information charged q continuing conspiracy beginning on January 1, 1880, and continuing until the date of the information, May 19, 1888. The case was not one where, Q specific agreement having been made upon a certain date, thereafter overt acts in pursuance of that ag- reement were committed, but was one where 1t was alleged and found proven by verdict of the jury that agreement itself was a continuing one. A statutory provision imposing a heavier penalty for a crime where 1t is still being carried on at and after the date the act takes effect does not violate the provision in Article I, Sections 10, of the Con- stitution of the United States, pro- hibiting any state from passing an ex post facto law. In People VI
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