101 Tenn. 454 | Tenn. | 1898
Indictment and conviction of rape, and sentence to twenty-one years in the pen
The Court charged: “The jury are the exclusive judges of the testimony, and the credibility of the witnesses. The Court is the judge of the law, but the jury are the judges of the applicability of the law, as given them in charge, to the facts of the case.” This is error. Const., Art I., Sec. 19.
We have nowhere gone so far as to say that in criminal cases the Court is the judge of the law. The constitutional declaration that the jury shall have the right 'to determine the law and facts, under the direction of the Court, in libel, as in other criminal
On the general subject whether, and to what extent, the jury are the judges of the law, there has been in this State, as in others, much controversy and some confusion of decisions. For many years there was no question raised against the view that the jury were the exclusive judges of the law, under the direction of the Court, as of the facts
Thus stood the law (in some confusion, it must be admitted,) until 1881, when it again came before the Court, when, after much discussion of the subject, in which it was practically adjudged that juries are judges of the law “only under the direction of the Court,” and have no right to disregard the law as given to them by the Court, are to receive the law from the Court, and are to judge the law as it applies to the facts, the Court held a charge of the Circuit Judge to be erroneous, in which he said: “The jury are the judges of the law. Should you conclude that the Court has not given you the law correctly, and should you conclude you know the law is otherwise than is given you by the Court, then you may pass upon the case as you know it.” This Court then proceeded to lay down the correct rule, and, in that connection, indicated a proper form of charge therefrom deduced, as follows: A proper charge is, “The jury are the judges of the facts and the law as it applies to
It is observable that the Court says they are judges of. the law “ as it applies to the facts,” not judges of the “applicability of the law” given them in charge, which is not by any means precisely of the same meaning, though elsewhere in the same opinion the Judge delivering it so uses them. “As it applies to the facts,’’ merely means that the jury are to apply it to the facts they find. “To judge of the applicability” of the law would include the power, not only to judge and apply, but to judge whether or not it applied at all to the case, and would involve the right to disregard the whole charge as inapplicable., This was not intended. They are to decide the facts, and apply the law to this or that state of facts, as they may determine the result of the • evidence establishing the facts they find.
In this case the Court assumes that ‘ ‘ there had been opinions and dicta not in accord with the rule here laid down,” and cites one case in accord — . MS., Jackson (opinion by Judge Turney). Of these opinions and dicta, the Court.says “they are over
The opinion in this case was by Judge Turney. Judge Freeman, who subsequently delivered the opinion in the 7 Lea case, dissented, and vigorously combated the correctness of the rule in felony cases, and bitterly fought its extension. The second case approved the first, and again reiterated that it was reversible error to charge that juries must receive the law as given by the Court. These cases must, therefore, be considered as overruled, so far as they held, unqualifiedly, that juries- are judges of the law, but not, of course, in extending or applying whatever rule exists in felony cases to misdemeanor cases. We note one other case, in which the Court held ‘ ‘ that it does not constitute reversible error for the Court to charge that juries were judges of the law
What was, in fact, decided in the Hannum case, we have shown by quotation of the charge held erroneous, but not to contain reversible error, because it did not appear to have been, or that it might have been, injurious to defendant, repeating on this point also the holding in the 7 Lea case. It will thus be seen that we have no case going so far as to say, in the face of the constitutional provision, that juries are not judges of the law (in some form), however vague it may have been made as a rule in fact, and this Court will go no further. No other case changes or extends the rule laid down in the Harris case. It remains the law. But we
The judgment is therefore reversed, and the case remanded for a new trial.