32 N.Y.S. 1112 | N.Y. Sup. Ct. | 1895
The law does not cast upon me the duty of concluding or deciding whether error was committed upon the trial in order to' determine whether I must grant the stay applied for. On the contrary, if any assigned error, sufficient, if well founded, to reverse the judgment, give rise to “ a reasonable doubt,” the law makes it my duty to inquire no further, blit to stay the execution of the judgment until the question be settled upon appeal. Code Crim. Proc. §527. I think there is reasonable doubt of the correctness of a vital part of the charge of the learned trial judge. It was the duty of the learned trial judge to instruct the jury, clearly and ungrudgingly, in behalf of the defendant that, “ in case of a reasonable doubt whether his guilt is satisfactorily shown, he is entitled to an acquittal.” Code Crim. Proc. § 389. This safeguard of persons accused of crime is not peculiar to our law, but substantially existed in the Roman law, and also in the Jewish, which probably constituted the most miüute and.scrupulous system of criminal jurisprudence which ever existed. Having in mind his duty in the premises, the learned trial judge correctly told the jury that the guilt of the defendant had to. be. established beyond a reasonable doubt,, and he then added: “That does not mean beyond all doubt. It does not mean that it. shall be conclusively established. It means a higher .order of proof than, a mere preponderance of evidence. It must he more specific than a mere preponderance of. evidence.” And then he added, in conclusion : “Ton must be. in such a frame of mind that (after considering all of the evidence and circumstances) you can say that your reason is satisfied; that there is no reasonable doubt; not that you are evenly divided, not that you think it possible that it is so, but that there is such a reasonable certainty that you can say that this defendant is guilty.” It seems to me that there is reasonable doubt whether the" learned trial judge, after charging the proposition which the defendant was by law entitled to the benefit of in all its fullness and expressiveness, did not straightway so reduce and minimize it by what he added as to fall short of submitting it in its full force and meaning. The rule of reasonable doubt
I have looked into this case with all the more care because it is one in which it is not less important that all the forms and appearances of justice be carefully observed than that justice itself be done. The defendant, a captain of police, was convicted of receiving two baskets of peaches for refraining from doing his official duty. It is, therefore, wholesome
Let the certificate be prepared, bail to be fixed on notice.
Application granted. ■