Commonwealth v. Green

Citations

• 126 Pa. 531
• 17 A. 878
• 1889 Pa. LEXIS 910

Syllabus

<p>1. The grand jury may act upon and make presentment only oí suehj offences as a,re of public notoriety and within their own knowledge,! such as nuisances, seditions, etc., or such as are given to them in charge by the court or by the district attorney, hut in no other cases without a previous examination of the accused before a magistrate.</p> <p>2. When a grand jury made presentment of a defendant for keeping a bawdy house, acting upon the testimony of certain witnesses examined before them upon an indictment for an assault and battery preferred against another defendant, an indictment preferred thereon by the district attorney, with leave, and returned a true bill will be quashed.</p> <p>3. On the hearing of the motion to quash, a member of the grand jury by whom the presentment was made is a competent wituess to testify to the fact that that body in making the presentment acted upon such testimony, and not upon their own knowledge and observation of the character of the house kept and maintained.</p> <p>4. Where the testimony of the grand juror, offered at the hearing of the motion to quash, is objected to, objection overruled and an exception sealed, the question as to the admissibility of the testimony is properly brought upon the record, under the provision of § 1, act of May 19, 1874, P. L. 219.*</p>