Commonwealth v. Nicely

Citations

• 130 Pa. 261
• 18 A. 737
• 1889 Pa. LEXIS 1180

Syllabus

<p>[To be reported.]</p> <p>1. The district attorney is a quasi judicial officer, representing the commonwealth, which seeks no victims: it is as much his duty, therefore, to see that no innocent man suffers, as it is to see that no guilty man escapes.</p> <p>2. When the district attorney permits private counsel to assist him in the trial of a cause, such counsel represents him to that extent, and should be governed in his conduct of the case by the same rules of propriety.</p> <p>3. There is no way provided by which objectionable remarks by counsel in an argument to the jury may be brought upon the record, and errors assigned, upon which the judgment of the court may be reversed by reason thereof.</p> <p>4. If, on the trial of an indictment for murder, the jury render a verdict of guilty, without specifying the degree of murder, it is not error, before the verdict is recorded and the jury separated, to send the jury back to amend their verdict.</p> <p>(a) On the trial of an indictment, a witness, being asked by the commonwealth if a pocket-book was given her .by a certain person at a certain time, replied affirmatively and stated that the same poeket-bóok had been handed to the officers in her presence.</p> <p>5. In such case, it was not error to refuse to permit the defendant, producing a pocket-book, to interrogate the witness as to its indentity with the pocket-book handed to the officers, and to test the witness’s knowledge in regard to the same.</p>