Case Name: State of Louisiana vs. Montgomery Williams
Court: Louisiana Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Louisiana
Decision Date: 1897-06-25
Citations: 49 La. Ann. 1148
Docket Number: No. 12,498
Parties: State of Louisiana vs. Montgomery Williams.
Judges: Nicholls, O. J., absent; ill.
Reporter: Louisiana Annual Reports
Volume: 49
Pages: 1148–1152

Head Matter:
No. 12,498.
State of Louisiana vs. Montgomery Williams.
That a person who is tendered as a petty juror states that he has formed or expressed an opinion with regirdto the guilt or innocence of an accused from a conversation held with his brother, who was a member of the jury who previously tried and convicted him on the same indictment, is not disqualifying, as the information thus imparted was hearsay merely.
A PPEAL from the Twentieth Judicial District Court for the Parish of Assumption. Guión, J.
M. J. Cunningham, Attorney General, and G. A. Gondran, District Attorney (John Marks of Counsel), for Plaintiff, Appellee.
Pugh & Pugh and Howell & Martin for Defendant, Appellant.
Submitted on briefs May 1, 1897, on the original hearing.
Rehearing was granted May 31, 1897.
Argued and submitted on rehearing June 19, 1897.
Opinion handed down June 25, 1897.
Statement.
On September 23, 1898, Montgomery Williams, the accused in this case, was indicted by the grand jurors oE the parish of Assumption, charged with having murdered one Severin Frank on the 4th day of July, 1896. On September 80, 1896, he was duly tried and found guilty of manslaughter. On the 5th day of October, 1896, a motion for a new trial was filed on the ground that .one of the jurors had separated from the others during the trial of the case; for this reason a new trial was granted.
On March 24, 1897, the accused was again tried and this time for •manslaughter under the same indictment, and was again found guilty of manslaughter and was sentenced to ten years’, imprisonment at hard labor in the State penitentiary.
During the trial of the case several bills-of exception were reserved. ¡

Opinion:
The opinion of the court was delivered by Nicholls, C. J., and banded down May 10, 1897.
The first bill reserved was to the ruling of the court on the challenge for cause of Anatole Hebert, one of the jurors drawn from the regular panel.
The bill of exception, as presented to the court, alleges that the juror on. his voir dire said that he had formed an opinion, which was a fixed one. The able and impartial judge of the lower court, before signing the bill, added that he did not remember that the juror had said that his opinion was a -fixed one, but that if he did he could not have meant to convey the meaning of what the words imply, as he had answered the judge that he could try the case impartially.
. The defendant prosecutes this appeal. '