23 Ill. 283 | Ill. | 1860
Lead Opinion
The loose and disconnected manner in which this record is made up and presented to the court, would fully justify, in an ordinary case, its rejection altogether, but as it is in a case in which the life of an individual is involved, we have studiously endeavored to extract from it all such portions as we have deemed the most important. We will state very briefly the results at which we have arrived, no time being allowed for elaborate argument or illustration.
Very many exceptions have been taken to the rulings of the court on the various questions raised, 'all of which we do not consider it necessary to notice.'
The first twelve exceptions which were taken on the trial, we do not consider to have been well taken, as the evidence offered had no direct bearing upon the issue to be tried. The testimony of David Strawn, given on behalf of the People, might not, at first view, be considered pertinent, but as rebutting testimony, it may have been, and in the absence of all proof in the record, the testimony not being certified to us, we are inclined so to consider it.
We have no fault to find with most of the instructions given to the jury before they retired, on behalf of the People, nor with the refusal of the court to give the instructions as asked by the prisoner.
Those on the part of the People, going to the question of insanity, state the law correctly, for the most part. The jury, in all cases where such a defense is interposed, should be distinctly told that every man is presumed to be sane, until the contrary is shown—that is his normal condition. • Before such a plea can be allowed to prevail, satisfactory evidence should be offered that the accused, in the language of the criminal code, was , “ affected with insanity,” and at the time he committed the act, was incapable of appreciating its enormity. This rule is founded in long experience, and is essential to the safety of the citizen. Sanity being the normal condition, it must be shown, by sufficient proof, that from some cause, it has ceased to be the condition of the accused.
On the evening of the 20th of July, the juiy having been out more than twenty-four hours, and unable to agree, came into court, and through their foreman, submitted to the court a paper written upon in pencil, among other matters the following: “ The juror maintains that he is competent to judge of the correctness of any or all of the instructions of the judge, as his, the juror’s, own opinion of the law may dictate.” To this the court responded as follows: “ The jury must take the law as given to them by the court, as the law which is to govern them in this case. It is for the jury to determine whether the law thus laid down by the court, is applicable to the proofs in the case. If the jury find the facts to be such as to make the law applicable either to a case of murder or manslaughter, or to a case of insanity, or to a state of innocence, the law as laid down to them must be made to apply. It is not for the jury to say that the instructions given are not the law by which they are to determine the guilt or innocence of the prisoner.”
On the following day, the 21st of July, the jury again came into court, and among other matters, the court told them, in answer to a question propounded by them: “ There is but one law by which they are to decide the question before them, and that is the law laid down to them by the court,” and further, that “ It is not the law that the jury can go outside of the case as given to them by the testimony and the instructions of the court, and determine for themselves whether the law, as given to them, is or is not the law,” and further, that “ It is not lawful for the jury to go behind the instructions given to them by the the court, and take it upon themselves to determine by law books, or in any other manner, whether the ruling of the court is or is not correct. They must take the instructions as they receive them from the court to be the law by which they are to be governed in the case,” and further, that “ the law defines what crime is, and the jury must take that definition as it stands in the instructions given to them.”
On the day following, July 22nd, the jury came again into court for further instructions, and, through their foreman, propounded, in writing, another question to the court, as to the credit to be given to witnesses, on which the court properly instructed the jury, and on concluding, the foreman of the jury informed the court that there was no probability of the jury ever agreeing, and wished the court to discharge them, which the court refused to do, and remarked to the jury that he “ considered it his duty to keep the jury longer, in view of the fact that the prisoner was charged with the commission of the highest crime known to the law, and that the security of the life of the people required, as well as the interests of the prisoner, that the jury should not be discharged until every effort had failed, and there was no probability whatever that the jury could agree; ” remarking to the jury, in this connection, “ that before the next term of the court, the witnesses may be in their graves, and justice may be cheated of its victim.” At the same time, the prisoner’s counsel asked the court to have some instructions given to the jury for the prisoner, which the court refused to allow, or suffer them to offer any instructions on his behalf, declaring that no further instructions would be given either for the People or the prisoner, except requested to do so by the jury-
Section 188 of the criminal code, (Scates’ Comp. 408,) declares in the most pointed and emphatic language, that “ Juries, in all cases, shall be judges of the law and the fact.” This power is conferred in the most unqualified terms, and has no limits which we can assign to it. We have said, in the case of Schneir v. The People, ante,^. 17, that, beingjudg4s of the law and the fact, they are not bound by the law, as given to them by the court, but can assume the responsibility of deciding, each juror for himself, what the law is. If they can say, upon their oaths, that they know the law better than the court, they have the power so to do. If they are prepared to say the law is different from what it is declared to be by the court, they have a perfect legal right to say so, and find the verdict according to their own notions of the law. It is a matter between their consciences and their God, with which no power can interfere. There can be no apprehension of oppression to the citizen in so looping this power, for an erroneous decision of the jury against a prisoner can be corrected by the power remaining in the court to award a new trial. The jury were not bound to take the law as “ laid down” to them by the court, but had the undoubted right to decide it for themselves, and in refusing so to declare, the court erred.
The remark made by the court, on the 22nd of July, when the jury desired to be discharged, should not have been made. It had a powerful tendency to prejudice the prisoner, as indicating the opinion of the court that he was a guilty person, and a proper victim. It is to be regretted such a remark was made in such a case—one of life or death, in which the supposed leaning of the court, no matter how unfounded, is calculated to influence a jury. This, of itself, would be sufficient to reverse the judgment.
The court also erred in refusing, after making these remarks to the jury, to permit the prisoner’s counsel to offer any instructions which the remark of the court was well calculated to suggest, and which, if permitted to be given, 'might have blunted the force of the remark. We hold, when a jury comes into court asking instructions, and are placed in a situation to be influenced by the court, the prisoner had an unquestionable right to present such views, in the shape of instructions to the jury, as the circumstances might require in his own behalf, and the court should have allowed it.
As a question of practice, we do not think it is proper for any juror to communicate to the court in writing or verbally, in reference to any matter belonging to the case. If they desire to communicate with the court, they should send a request to the court through the officer in attendance, that they may, in a body, be brought into court. Nor do we think it good practice for the court to permit any one of the jurors, whilst they are deliberating, to leave the jury room and come into court, and hold a conversation with the court, or that the court should make such a request of the foreman or of any other member of the jury. It is liable to great abuse.
We have said we were satisfied with most of the instructions given for the People before the jury retired. Such is the confused state of the record, and the want of time at our disposal, that we have not been able to examine them all so critically as we could wish, but are satisfied some of them, as the eighth and ninth on behalf of the People, require some modification, so as to conform to the principles we have here endeavored to lay down.
We also think the prisoner’s fourth instruction should have been given. Though such a state of mind would not excuse the homicide, it should reduce it to manslaughter, for deliberation would be absent, and that, is essential to constitute murder.
For the reasons we have so hurriedly given, the judgment must be reversed, and the cause remanded for a new trial.
Judgment reversed.
Dissenting Opinion
Separate and dissenting opinion of
In this case the court below instructed the jury that it was the province of the court to expound the law, and it was for the jury to receive the law thus given them, and apply it to the facts of the case. And that the jury have no right to say that the rules announced as law by the court are not such, and that in forming their verdict they must be governed by it as given in the instructions. And that the court gave the proper construction to the latter clause of the 188th section of the chapter entitled “ Criminal Jurisprudence,” R. S., which is this: “ Juries in all cases shall be judges of the law and the fact;” I am fully satisfied. In the case of Schnier v. The People, (ante, p. 17,) the majority of the court held that the jury were the uncontrolled judges of both the law and the facts, under this provision. And that they were not bound to receive the law as announced by the judge; and the majority of the court in this case adopt, and apply the same construction. Having then dissented to that construction, and still entertaining the same views, I shall proceed, as far as my limited time and opportunity will permit, to give my reasons for dissenting from the opinion of the court.
In determining what was the intention of the legislature in adopting this provision, it may be proper to refer to the history of criminal jurisprudence, in the country from which we have adopted, with modifications, our criminal code. And when it is remembered that in former times juries were required to find special verdicts, leaving the courts to determine whether under the facts found by the jury, the law when applied to the facts, would hpld the defendant guilty of the crime charged, we can see a controlling reason for the enactment of some provision by which courts should be effectually precluded from the exercise of a power so liable to abuse, and dangerous to the liberty of the citizen. It was, in its day, justly claimed that the exercise of such a power virtually deprived the accused of the benefit of trial by jury, which right, by the English subject and the American citizen, has at all times been guarded with jealous care.
Under the construction given this provision by the court, it can hardly be that it is intended to adhere to the literal meaning of the language of the law. If so, then it must inevitably follow, that on every question of the admissibility of evidence, the qualification of a juror, the constitutionality of the law creating the crime, as well as the true construction of the act creating the offense, may be considered and passed upon by the jury, in making their verdict. After they have retired to their room, they would, under such a construction, have the right to review the decisions of the court in admitting evidence, and exclude from their consideration such portions as they supposed were illegally before them. They would also have the right to determine whether the law creating the offense was warranted by the constitution. They could place upon the act creating the offense, any construction they might choose, and all this in direct opposition to the instructions of the court, based upon well-settled principles of criminal jurisprudence, received, acted upon and approved, by the wisest and best judges of all ages. Can it be possible that the legislature ever intended to confide to twelve men, who have never perhaps even read the criminal code of our State, unacquainted with the law of evidence and the rules of construction, and uninformed as to the whole theory of criminal jurisprudence, such absolute power over the life and liberty of the citizen ? I am constrained, from the great care manifested by the legislature for security to the life and liberty of the. citizen, to believe that such was not its intention. Such a doctrine, it strikes my mind, would inevitably lead to the unsettling of all criminal law. If the jurors are the uncontrolled judges of what it is, and their finding in a particular case settles the law of that crime, is a jury in a subsequent case to be governed by it, or may they disregard it, or, if bound by it, who can know and conform his actions to it ? Or if, on the contrary, every jury may settle the law for themselves, give a construction to the statute, and either acquit or convict upon the construction thus given, in defiance of the decision of the highest judicial tribunal known to the law and the instructions of the circuit judge, or even in the teeth of the statute itself, no one can, by any possibility, know what the law is until the jury have announced it by the decision of the case. And while I may concede all that is claimed for the trial by jury, I am irresistibly impelled to conclude that such an uncontrolled power, placed in the hands of twelve men, uninformed even in the elementary principles of the law, is fraught with dangers, and is liable to abuse, however honest their purpose, to an extent equal to all its benefits.
The statute has not given any review by this court (until very recently), of the finding of the jury upon the facts in a criminal prosecution. Until then, even as against the accused, appellate courts have not looked into the evidence, but have confined their inquiries to the law as expounded by the court. Nor is there any provision which authorizes this court to review the decision of the law made by the jury. And if the jury may disregard the instructions of the court, how can we say that a wrong instruction contributed in the slightest degree to the result at which they arrived ? They may, for anything we can presume, have disregarded it, and determined the law correctly. And if they are the uncontrolled judges of the law, and the legislature has made them such, we should presume that they knew the law and acted upon it. If the legislature intended that they should be such judges, they must have supposed that they were competent and qualified to decide all legal questions arising in the progress of the trial. But if it were admitted that the jury are the judges of the law, and may disregard the instructions of the court, in its practical application, what is to be its effect ? Is the majority of the jury, like the majority of the members of a court, to determine the law, or must they, as in the finding of facts, unanimously agree ? May one of the jurors, who differs with the others, refuse to concur in the construction of the law, given by the eleven other jurors and the judge, defeat justice, from his mere whim or caprice, and prevent an acquittal or a conviction? Such, I conceive, never could have been the design of the legislature, by this enactment. So far as my observation and experience has extended, such has not been the practice of courts, or the understanding of the profession. In this case the court had fully, clearly and unmistakably instructed the jury, that they were the judges of the law and fact, and that if he instructed contrary to the law it would be error, and the instruction complained of was given in answer to specific questions, propounded by the jury, as to whether, they had the right to go behind the instructions and see if they were in conflict with the Bible, and whether they had the right to read medical books to see whether the physicians testified correctly, and to examine law books to ascertain whether evidence was properly admitted. To these inquiries this instruction was designed as an answer. And the jury must have so regarded it, when it was given. They had asked no question that related to the commission of the act itself, or what it required under the statute to constitute the crime. We may safely infer that on that question they had no difficulty, and unless they are to be the jndges of all questions of law arising on the trial, I think they could not have been misled by this instruction.
I am constrained to come to the conclusion, (and I do it with hesitation, when my learned brethren, for whose more extensive and enlarged experience than my own, I have the highest respect,) that the true construction of this provision requires the jury to receive and act upon the law as announced to them by the court. When it is thus given, the duty is theirs to judge of that law, and determine whether, when applied to the facts proven and found by them in the case, the accused is guilty or innocent. This removes, as it should, from the judge all right to find the facts, but leaves him responsible for'the determination of the law creating the crime charged, the application of the law of evidence offered to establish the crime charged, and the jury responsible for the proper application of the evidence thus admitted, and the law thus announced to them. They are thus made the judges of the law and facts of the case. If they misapply it to the facts, and a conviction follows, the Circuit Court may grant a new trial, or, if refused, it may be corrected in this court, and if the judge errs in giving instructions, either as to the law, or so as the jury may have been misled, the correction may be had, as we would then presume the jury had acted upon and been governed by the law as announced by the court. This construction frees the administration of criminal justice from all difficulty. It leaves the judge and jury severally responsible for their acts in the trial of the cause, and enables us to see where the error was committed, and to apply the correction.
The statute, in defining voluntary manslaughter, has required that the provocation, to be produced by the infliction of, or an attempt to commit, a serious bodily injury, must exist, in order to reduce the offense from murder to manslaughter, and I think that the defendant’s fourth instruction was, therefore, properly refused, as there is no evidence of such an injury inflicted or attempted upon the accused. I am not prepared to hold that the judgment of conviction should not be reversed for the remarks of the judge on the trial, but can perceive no other reason for reversing a conviction which I, in other respects, regard as fair.
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