Commonwealth v. Mosier

Citations

• 135 Pa. 221
• 19 A. 943
• 1890 Pa. LEXIS 1176

Syllabus

<p>1. An indictment for adultery should not be quashed merely because it appears that the defendant’s wife was examined before the grand jury as a witness. In the absence of anything to show what she testified to, the presumption is that she was examined only to prove the fact of marriage, as to which she was competent under § 2 (b), act of May 28, 1887, P. L. 158.</p> <p>2. The fact that a person, called as a juror in a criminal case, had conversed with the defendant during the sitting of the court, though not about the ease, and had exchanged drinks and cigars with him, is sufficient cause of challenge proper affectum; at all events, the juror’s exclusion does not injure the defendant, who has no right to have any particular juror sworn.</p> <p>3. Where a defendant, indicted for adultery with C., upon his examination in chief has denied the commission of adultery with C., either on the date laid in the indictment or at any other time, he may be asked, upon cross-examination, whether he did not plead guilty in Ohio to a charge of adultery with 0., and why he did so.</p> <p>4. It is not error to instruct the jury, upon the trial of an indictment for adultery, that the law would fully warrant their inferring the commission of the crime charged, from the fact that a man and a woman, not husband and wife, were occupying the same room, undressed, in the night time.</p>