Commonwealth v. Penrose

Citations

• 27 Pa. Super. 101
• 1905 Pa. Super. LEXIS 13

Syllabus

<p>Criminal law — Trial—Charge—Excerpts from charge — Assignments of error.</p> <p>After a trial and conviction in a criminal case, the judgment will not be reversed on assignments of error based on alleged erroneous excerpts from the charge where it appears from the context of the charge in immediate connection with the excerpts assigned as error, that the alleged errors were without foundation.</p> <p>Criminal law — Trial—Charge of court.</p> <p>The extent to which a trial judge ought to go in reviewing, analyzing and commenting on testimony depends very largely upon the circumstances of the case, and, to some extent, upon the line of argument pursued by counsel in addressing the jury. Generally it must be left to his sound discretion. It is only in exceptional cases, as, for example, where it plainly appears that the charge is so inadequate in this regard as to be misleading, or where by indirection it withdraws the attention of the jury from material issues or evidence or from matters entering as necessary elements into the decision of the question at issue, or where its tendency as a whole is to unduly magnify the importance of the proofs introduced by one party and to belittle those introduced by the other party, that the court will be reversed upon a general exception of this nature.</p> <p>Criminal law — Jury—Aliens—Alienage of jurymen — New trial.</p> <p>After trial and conviction in a criminal case the court commits no error in refusing a new trial on the ground of the alienage of one of the jurymen, where it appears that the juryman was a resident of the county, was sober, intelligent and a judicious person, and that no objection was made at the trial as to his alienage.</p>