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punished; under the act which generates the new, both parties are punished, as if guilty of a trespass cach upon the other. In pursuance of this act, in October, 1876, George Reynolds was indicted, in the District Court of the United States for the Territory of Ulah, for the crime of bigamy; he, the said defendant, having married one Amelia Jane Schofield, being then already married to one Mary Ann Tuddenham. The act was passed in 1862 previous to the marriage.
Before the passage of the act to marry one wife having another, was not illegal; and such as had go married were, and continue to be, in contemplation of the laws of the United States, good and lawful citizens. As no person can, by the same transaction, become both a bigamist and a polygamist, it follows that such had completed their marital adventures before the passage of the act, remained polygamists, while such as, after the passage of the act, entered into plurality engagements thereby became, in the eye of law, bigamists. In short, the act of 1862 established a broad distinction between bigamy and polygamy—between loyal and the criminal pluralists.
In the administration of injustice, equivocations are convenient; but the presence of the equivocation testifies to a contemplated injustice. The defendant was indicted for bigamy; but, as appears throughout from the proceedings, arraigned and tried for polygamy. Thus, on the trial of a person charged with a specific offense—with having, on a certain day, perpetrated an act of bigamy, a juror is put upon oath for an inquiry into his competency, and questioned in respect to his domestic relations. He is asked, "Do you live in polygamy?"—and it appearing to the satisfaction of the court that he does live in polygamy, he is found unfit, and excluded from the panel.
Jurors are tried. by two processes: upon their voir dire, as it is called, and upon evidence aliunde, of third persons; but not by both; counsel, electing one, not being permitted to resort to the other. It is a rule of the law, that no person called as a juror shall be asked questions, the answers to which might tend to his general depreciation. No witness, in a court of justice, is compelled, out of his own mouth, to criminate, no juror to diminish himself; and yet, for no other purpose than that of disparagement and disqualification, this inquiry was allowed.
Here was a manifest violation of an established rule of judicial obligation. It did not follow, even if the disfranchised jurors—-
