State v. Ferranto

Was there an abuse of judicial discretion by the trial court (1) “in discharging the jury and accepting a plea of guilty in the manner that it was done;” (2) “and in finding the defendant guilty of murder in the first degree, without hearing testimony after the plea was entered?” What is judicial discretion?

Bouvier’s Law Dictionary gives this definition:

“Abuse of discretion. A discretion exercised to an end or purpose not justified by, and clearly against, reason and evidence.”

The term is comprehensively defined in 18 Corpus Juris, p. 1185, as follows:

“This authority may be said, in a general…