Court Opinion

ID: 9641249
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 17:26:24.89757+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:35.997432
License: Public Domain

EDGERTON, Associate Justice
(dissenting).
I think the second counts of the three informations, considered together, charge “two or more defendants * * * to have participated * * * in the same series of acts or transactions constituting * * * offenses.” Therefore the Rule covers the case. It is immaterial that the informations do not charge participation in “the same act or transaction.”
The words “the same series of acts” seem to me strictly applicable to the acts charged here. Although each single act was that of only one defendant, (1) the acts were similar in nature and purpose, (2) all were committed at or near the same time and at or near the same place, and (3) all were parts of the same illegal enterprise. I can think of no case in which it would seem to me clearer that “two or more defendants” who did not participate in “the same act or transaction” did participate in “the same series of acts or transactions constituting * * * offenses.”
The Rule is the Municipal Court’s announcement that the court will try two or more defendants together in certain circumstances. If the described circumstances were not, as I think they were, present here, two questions would arise: (1) whether the Rule implied that the court would never try defendants together in any other circumstances than those described, and (2) whether such an announcement, if made, would bind the court as against this appellant. Deviation from procedure established by a rule of court may or may not amount to reversible error. In the view I take of the case it is unnecessary to consider these questions.