Case ID: ohio_7/html/0543-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      Judge Grimke", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

James Kuder v. Henry Cronice.
    A party to a wager is not compelled to testify in an action brought by an informer under the statute, to recover the penalty.
    This case was adjourned from the county of Seneca.
    It was a penal action founded on a bet upon the result of an election, and brought in debt under the provisions of the gaming act. The defendant, Oronice, and Eli Dresbaek, made a wager on the presidential election, in 1832, of three hundred dollars. Dresback lost, and paid the money to Oronice, to recover which the plaintiff, as common informer, brought this suit. On the trial, Dresbaek was called as a witness lor the plaintiff; he expressed his unwillingness to testify, and was objected to by the defendant. The court overruled the objections and required him to give evidence. He testified accordingly, and the jury rendered a verdict for the plaiutiff. The defendant’s counsel moved for a new trial, assigning two grounds:
    1. It was error to compel the witness to testify.
    2. That this description of wager is not prohibited by the statute.
    Upon these assignments, the motion was adjourned here for decision.
    Banson and Boalt, for plaintiff.
    Ooeeinbury, for defendant.
   Judge Grimke

delivered the opinion of the court:

Section 12 of the statute declares, that “ if any person, guilty of any of the offenses enumerated, shall be called upon before a grand jury, or in any court of justice, to testify on behalf of the state, the witness shall be compelled *to give all the facts in evidence, and shall not be indictable or punishable for any of the offenses so by him disclosed.” Drcsback was required to testify in neither of these cases, and it is the statute alone, which, invading the general principles of evidence, has created this species of testimony in any case. That no man shall be compelled to testify where that testimony may lay the foundation for a criminal prosecution against himself, is a principle well established and well understood, to which we can admit no exceptions but such as the statute has made. It is evident, then, that the facts disclosed by this witness implicate himself, and that they might be instrumental in procuring a conviction against him. The law declares he shall be a witness for the state alone, and in that case humanely protects him against the consequences of his testimony. It protects him in no other case.

It was, therefore, error to compel him to testify in this case, and for this error a new trial is awarded.