Court Opinion

ID: 9529065
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:47:06.530763+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:27:38.620523
License: Public Domain

Dissent
Jackson, C. J.
This dissent will be limited first to the question of the separation of the jury over the objections of the appellant, and second to the question *625of double jeopardy occurring by reason of the discharge of the first jury over the objection of the appellant after the jury had been sworn and evidence adduced in the cause.
A thorough search of the case law involved, indicates that the majority opinion in its discussion of Whitaker v. State (1960), 240 Ind. 676, 168 N. E. 2d 212 makes an erroneous assumption concerning the prevailing view in Indiana concerning separation of the jury during the trial of felonies. The majority opinion relies upon statements made in separate concurring and dissenting opinions in Whitaker v. State, supra. Such statements have no legal basis in Indiana for establishing precedent. The attempt to construe a statute, where no words of the legislature indicate a difference in treatment of different classes of felonies in regard to separation of the jury, is in violation of the first principle of criminal statutory construction; a criminal statute will be construed strictly in favor of the criminal defendant. All the statute states is that where the jury is allowed to separate, they will be properly admonished by the Court, but the common law as developed in Indiana states that separation will not be allowed where it is specifically objected to by the defendant. Jones v. The State (1831), 2 Blackf. 475; Anderson v. The State (1867), 28 Ind. 22; Quinn v. The State (1860), 14 Ind. 589. All authorities recognize that this rule in Indiana does not differentiate between capital and non-capital trials. Therefore, statements such as, “[permitting the jury to separate during trial over defendant’s objection constitutes reversible error, . . . .” [Ewbank’s Indiana Criminal Law, §364, citing authority], say nothing concerning the nature of the offense being tried, but instead consider this a general rule. The statements in the separate concurring and dissenting opin*626ions in Whitaker v. State, supra, must, therefore, due to the lack of valid authority in support be considered, at best, dicta. The discussion of the trial judge’s discretionary power has no place in this opinion since it has been held, by the weight of authority in Indiana, that a defendant has a right, when he properly makes such request, to keep the jury together during trial, a right which the trial court may not abuse upon pain of committing reversible error. For the reason above stated the appellant’s motion for a new trial should be granted.
The second point concerns the question of double jeopardy resulting from the discharge of the legally impanelled jury over the objection of the appellant. Armentrout v. State (1938), 214 Ind. 273, 15 N. E. 2d 363, which is not a capital case, contains a most lucid exposition of the law concerning double jeopardy and when discharge is mandatory.
Judge Roll in that opinion stated succinctly, at page 275,
“Jeopardy is the peril and danger to life or liberty in which a person is put when he has been regularly and sufficiently charged with the commission of a crime; has been arraigned and pleaded to such charge; has been put upon his trial before a tribunal properly organized and competent to try him for the offense charged, and a jury has been impanelled from persons competent to sit on the trial and duly sworn to try the cause and charged with due deliverance. It is undisputed and the motion filed for a discharge clearly shows that all of the above requisites were present in this case. The only question presented was whether or not the discharge of the jury under the circumstances in this case would prevent jeopardy from attaching. Wharton’s Criminal Law 12ed, vol. 1, §395, p. 548, says:
“After the trial of a criminal charge has been duly entered upon, before a court regularly organized, and having jurisdiction of the subject *627matter of the charge, and competent to try the defendant, on an indictment sufficient to support any judgment that may be rendered, with a lawful jury properly selected and sworn, a discharge of such jury, without the consent of the accused, and without the existence of a state of facts under which the law provides for a discharge of a jury without a verdict, is equivalent to an acquittal of the defendant of the charge, and he cannot thereafter be tried thereon. The only causes for which a jury impanelled and sworn to try an accused on a criminal charge can be discharged by the court without a verdict are: (1) Consent of the prisoner; (2) Illness of (a) one of the jurors, (b) the prisoner, or (c) the court; (3) Absence of a juryman; (4) Impossibility of the jurors agreeing on a verdict; (5) Some untoward accident that renders a verdict impossible; and (6) Extreme and overwhelming physical or legal necessity.’
“In the case of State v Wamire (1861), 16 Ind. 357, the court said (p. 357):
“ ‘The following points of criminal law are settled in this State: 1. If the Court, without the consent of the defendant, discharged the jury to whom his cause has been submitted, before verdict, no imperious necessity rendered such discharge necessary, it works an acquittal of the defendant; ....’
“In Miller v. State (1856), 8 Ind. 325, 327, this court said:
“ ‘The discharge of the jury must result from necessity, a necessity determined by law, or it will release the prisoner.’ ”
In the case at bar no imperious necessity required the discharge of the jury. The amenities and proprieties of the situation could have been observed without discharging the jury. It is obvious that nothing in the discharge of the jury of this cause was predicated on grounds determined to be of legal necessity. It must be noted that Holt v. State (1945), 223 Ind. 217, 59 N. E. 2d 563, relied upon by the majority as authority for sustaining the State’s demurrer, reaffirmed Ar*628mentrout v. State, supra, but departed from the general rule because the defendant in Holt v. State, supra, did not object to the discharge of the jury as did the appellant in the case at bar.
As to the discussion in the majority opinion that the Supreme Court of the United States has “passed on this point”, we must take exception with the statement and the majority reliance on the case of Wade v. Hunter (1949), 336 U. S. 684, 69 S. Ct. 834, 93 L. Ed. 974. Wade v. Hunter dealt with a Court Martial proceeding in which it was determined by the Supreme Court that tactical conditions of an army during war, and under changing battle conditions, were conditions of imperious necessity which would allow a mistrial to occur without jeopardy accruing to the defendant. It was stated in that case that the public interest will sometimes subordinate the constitutionally guaranteed rights, but always in the background of all Supreme Court opinions in this area are the words of Justice Story in United States v. Coolidge, 25 Fed. Cas. 622 (No. 14858), (C. C. D. Mass. 1815), which were that discretion to discharge the jury before it has reached a verdict is to be exercised “only in very extraordinary and striking circumstances.” Such a position was adhered to in Downum v. United States (1963), 372 U. S. 734, 10 L. Ed. 2d 100, in which cases such as Wade v. Hunter, supra, were distinguished as being extreme and not indicative of the general rule. The Supreme Court of the United States reversed in Downum v. United States, supra, with the closing words at page 104, “[w]e resolve any doubt in favor of the liberty of the citizen, rather than exercise what would be an unlimited, uncertain and arbitrary judicial discretion.”
For these reasons and for the reason that the trial court could have employed other means, such as a con*629tinuance, there can be no showing that the discharge was made on sound legal grounds of an imperious nature, and therefore, the judgment should be reversed and cause remanded with instructions to grant appellant’s motion for a new trial.
Note. — Reported in 209 N. E. 2d 254. Dissent in 210 N. E. 2d 373.