The next step in the course of the progress of a criminal cause after the arraignment is the selection of a jury, if the parties are present and ready to proceed with the trial.

It sometimes occurs where two or more persons are indicted jointly that one of them may apply to the court for a separate trial from his co-defendants.

But the granting of a separate trial is addressed to the sound discretion of the court; therefore a refusal of the motion cannot be urged as error unless it clearly appears there was an abuse of that discretion.34

There may be good reasons for asking a separate trial; for instance the wife of one defendant may be a material witness for the other, though incompetent for her husband.35

So a confession made by the codefendant in a capital case is good reason for a separate trial.36

32 North vs. People, 139 Ill., 98.

33 Vise vs. County of Hamilton, 19

Ill., 78; See Dixon vs. People, 168 Ill., 193.

34 Hughes' Cr. Law, Sec. 2840;

Doyle vs. People, 147 Ill., 395; State vs. People, 147 Ill., 395; State vs. Soper, 16 Me., 293; Gillespie vs. People, 176 El., 242; People vs. Alviso, 55 Cal., 230; People vs. Furhman, 103 Mich., 593; Henry vs. People, 198 Ill., 162, 186.

35 Hughes' Cr. Law, Sec. 2841; 1 Roscoe Cr. Ev., 127.

36 White vs. People, St. Ill., 336; Com. vs. Janes, 99 Mass., 438.