Commonwealth v. Gaines

Citations

• 42 Pa. Super. 550
• 1910 Pa. Super. LEXIS 377

Syllabus

<p>Grand jury — Actions of grand jury — Testimony of witnesses.</p> <p>1. A member of a grand jury cannot be questioned as to what the jury did, or what opinions its members expressed, but he may be questioned as to what a witness had testified to before the jury. A question should not be propounded to a grand juryman which would permit him to testify as to such matters as he has no right to disclose.</p> <p>Criminal law — Practice, Q. S. — Indictment—Attorney.</p> <p>2. Where the name of a witness is indorsed on an indictment the presumption of law is that the name was properly placed upon the indictment by the district attorney, and it is immaterial whether he placed the name there by the direction of the grand jury, or not.</p> <p>3. Where a grand jury ignores an indictment and places the costs on a witness whose name was indorsed on the indictment, and who appeared before them, although another person was named as the prosecutor, the action of the court in refusing to set aside the finding of the grand jury as to costs will not be reversed by the appellate court in the absence of a manifest abuse of discretion.</p> <p>4. In such a case where the court refuses to set aside the finding of the grand jury as to costs, and sentences the witness to pay the costs, but no exception is taken to the sentence, and no error assigned as to its legality, the appellate court cannot consider the action of the lower court in refusing to set aside the finding of the grand jury, inasmuch as such action does not legally injure the defendant. It is only by the sentence he is injured, if at all.</p>