Stock

Defendant was convicted of forgery. From a judgment upon such conviction and an order denying a new trial he has appealed.

Upon retiring to deliberate upon their verdict, which was at the noon hour, the jurors were taken to lunch by the bailiff, into whose custody they had been ordered by the court. The bailiff was duly sworn to keep the jurors together in some private and convenient place, and not to permit any person to speak to or communicate with them, nor to do so himself unless ordered by the court or to ask them whether they had agreed upon a verdict. The jurors, in charge of the bailiff, together with defendant, who also was in custody of the bailiff, descended the stairs leading from the courtroom to the lobby of the courthouse. When they reached the courthouse lobby the bailiff, wishing to deliver his prisoner to the jailer at the county jail, asked a deputy county clerk, who was near by, to watch the jurors and see that no one talked to them while he took his prisoner to the county jail. The bailiff and his prisoner were gone about a minute and a half, when the former, returning, again assumed personal charge of the jurors at or near the corner of the courthouse…