Source: http://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/156/51/
Timestamp: 2013-12-10 08:25:17
Document Index: 71110979

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 661', '§ 233', '§ 810', '§ 3', '§ 49', '§ 21', '§ 82', '§ 375', '§ 806']

SPARF et al. v. UNITED STATES. | Supreme Court | LII / Legal Information Institute
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156 U.S. 51 (15 S.Ct. 273, 39 L.Ed. 343)
[HTML] dissent, GRAY, SHIRAS
[HTML] F. J. Kierce, for plaintiffs in error.
1. The declarations of Hansen, as detailed by Sodergren, Green, and Larsen, were clearly admissible in evidence against him. There was no ground on which their exclusion could have been sustained. In reference to this proof, the court charged the jury that if they believed from the evidence that Green and Larsen, or either of them, were accomplices in the commission of the acts charged in the indictment, they should act upon their testimony with great caution, subjecting it to a careful examination, in the light of all the other evidence, and ought not to convict upon their testimony alone, unless satisfied beyond reasonable doubt of its truth; that if Larsen and Green, or either of them, or any other person, were induced to testify by promises of immunity from punishment, or by hope held out from any one that it would go easier with them in case they disclosed their confederates, or in case they implicated some one else in the crime, this must be taken into consideration in determining the weight to be given to their testimony, and should be closely scrutinized; that the confessions of a prisoner out of court and in custody, made to persons having no authority to examine him, should be acted upon and received with great care and caution; that words are often misreported through ignorance, inattention, or malice, are extremely liable to misconstruction, are rarely sufficient to warrant conviction, as well on account of the great danger of mistake upon the part of the witness as of the fact that the mind of the prisoner himself may be oppressed by his situation or influenced by motives of hope or fear to make an untrue confession; that, in considering the weight to be given to the alleged confessions of the defendants, the jury were to consider their condition at the time they were made, the fact that they had been charged with crime, and were in custody; and that the jury were to determine whether those confessions were voluntary, or whether any inducements were held out to them by any one. The defendants did not offer themselves as witnesses, and the court took care to say that a person charged with crime is under no obligation to testify in his own behalf, and that his neglect to testify did not create any presumption whatever against him.
So far as the record discloses, these confessions were entirely free and voluntary, uninfluenced by any hope of reward or fear of punishment. In Hopt v. People, 110 U. S. 574, 584, 4 Sup. Ct. 202, it was said: 'While some of the adjudged cases indicate distrust of confessions which are not judicial, it is certain, as observed by Baron Parke, in Reg. v. Baldry, 2 Denison, Cr. Cas. 430, 445, that the rule against their admissibility has been sometimes carried too far, and in its application justice and common sense have too frequently been sacrificed at the shrine of mercy. A confession, if freely and voluntarily made, is evidence of the most satisfactory character. Such a confession, said Eyre, C. B. (King v. Warickshall, 1 Leach, 263), 'is deserving of the highest credit, because it is presumed to flow from the strongest sense of guilt, and therefore it is admitted as proof of the crime to which it refers.' Elementary writers of authority concur in saying that while, from the nature of such evidence, it must be subjected to careful scrutiny, and received with great caution, a deliberate voluntary confession of guilt is among the most effectual proofs in the law, and constitutes the strongest evidence against the party making it that can be given of the facts stated in such confession.'
Counsel for the accused insist that there cannot be a voluntary statement, a free, open confession, while a defendant is confined and in irons, under an accusation of having committed a capital offense. We have not been referred to any authority in support of that position. It is true that the fact of a prisoner being in custody at the time he makes a confession is a circumstance not to be overlooked, because it bears upon the inquiry whether the confession was voluntarily made, or was extorted by threats or violence, or made under the influence of fear. But confinement or imprisonment is not in itself sufficient to justify the exclusion of a confession, if it appears to have been voluntary and was not obtained by putting the prisoner in fear or by promises. Whart. Cr. Ev. (9th Ed.) §§ 661, 663, and authorities cited. The import of Sodergren's evidence was that, when Hansen manifested a desire to speak to him on the subject of the killing, the latter said he did not wish to hear it, but 'to keep it until the right time came, and then tell the truth.' But this was not offering to the prisoner an inducement to make a confession. Littledale, J., well observed in Rex v. Court, 7 Car. & P. 487, that telling a man to be sure to tell the truth is not advising him to confess anything of which he is really not guilty. See, also Queen v. Reeves, L. R. 1 Cr. Cas. 362. Nothing said to Hansen prior to the confession was at all calculated to put him in fear, or to excite any hope of his escaping punishment by telling what he knew or witnessed or did in reference to the killing.
But the confession and declarations of Hansen to Sodergren after the killing of Fitzgerald were incompetent as evidence against Sparf. St. Clair, Hansen, and Sparf were charged jointly with the murder of Fitzgerald. What Hansen said after the deed had been fully consummated, and not on the occasion of the killing, and in the presence only of the witness, was clearly incompetent against his codefendant, Sparf, however strongly it tended to connect the latter with the commission of the crime. If the evidence made a case of conspiracy to kill and murder, the rule is settled that 'after the conspiracy has come to an end, and whether by success or by failure, the admissions of one conspirator by way of narrative of past facts are not admissible in evidence against the others.' Logan v. U. S., 144 U. S. 263, 309, 12 Sup. Ct. 617; Brown v. U. S., 150 U. S., 93, 98, 14 Sup. Ct. 37; Wright, Cr. Consp. (Carson's Ed.) 212, 213, 217; 1 Greenl. Ev. § 233. The same rule is applicable where the evidence does not show that the killing was pursuant to a conspiracy, but yet was by the joint act of the defendants.
The objection to the question in answer to which the declarations of Hansen to Sodergren were given was sufficiently specific. The general rule undoubtedly is that an objection should be so framed as to indicate the precise point upon which the court is asked to rule. It has therefore been often held that an objection to evidence as irrelevant, immaterial, and incompetent, nothing more being stated, is too general to be considered on error, if in any possible circumstances it could be deemed or could be made relevant, material, or competent. But this principle will not sustain the ruling by which the declarations of Hansen, made long after the commission of the alleged murder, and not in the presence of Sparf, were admitted as evidence against the latter. In no state of case were those declarations competent against Sparf. Their inadmissibility as to him was apparent. It appeared upon the very face of the question itself.
In People v. Beach, 87 N. Y. 508, 513, which was an indictment for petit larceny, the prosecution offered in evidence the statements of a third party, not in the presence of the accused, which related to the vital point upon which the conviction turned. There was a general objection to the evidence. The court said: 'We think, however, the general objection made in this case was sufficient. It appeared, when the objection was made, that the conversation proposed to be shown was between the prosecutor and Hardacre, when the defendant was not present. There was no possible view of the case, as it then or afterwards stood, in which such a conversation was admissible. When the witness was asked to state the conversation, and counsel objected, both the court and the prosecuting officer must have understood that it was an objection to the competency of the proposed evidence. If the objection had been made in terms, on the ground that the evidence was incompetent, the sufficiency of the objection could not have been questioned, and the objection, as made, necessarily implied this. Neither the court nor prosecuting attorney could have been misled as to the point of the objection. It was patent on considering the objection in connection with the proof offered. If any doubt could be entertained as to the technical sufficiency of the objection, we should be disinclined, in a criminal case, to deprive a defendant of the benefit of an exception by the strict application of a rule more especially applicable to civil cases, when we can see that its application would produce injustice.' And in Turner v. City of Newburgh, 109 N. Y. 301, 308, 16 N. E. 344, it was said: 'This court has held that when the objection to evidence is general, and it is overruled, and the evidence is received, the ruling will not be held erroneous, unless there be some grounds which could not have been obviated had they been specified, or unless the evidence in its essential nature be incompetent.' Tozer v. Railroad Co., 105 N. Y. 659, 11 N. E. 846; Alcorn v. Railroad Co., 108 Mo. 81, 18 S. W. 188; Curr v. Hundley (Colo. App.) 31 Pac. 939, 940; Lowenstein v. McCadden, 92 Tenn. 614, 22 S. W. 426; Ward v. Wilms, 16 Colo. 86, 27 Pac. 247.
We are of opinion that as the declarations of Hansen to Sodergren were not, in any view of the case, competent evidence against Sparf, the court, upon objection being made by counsel representing both defendants, should have excluded them as evidence against him, and admitted them against Hansen. The fact that the objection was made in the name of both defendants did not justify the court in overruling it as to both, when the evidence was obviously incompetent, and could not have been made competent against Sparf, and was obviously competent against Hansen. It was not necessary that counsel should have made the objection on behalf of one defendant, and then formally repeated it, in the same words, for the other defendant. If Sparf had been tried alone, a general objection in his behalf, on the ground of incompetency, would have been sufficiently definite. Surely, such an objection coming from Sparf when tried with another ought not to be deemed ineffectual because of the circumstance that his counsel, who, by order of the court, represented also his codefendant, incautiously spoke in the name of both defendants. Each was entitled to make his own defense, and the jury could have found one of them guilty, and acquitted the other. Insurance Co. v. Hillmon, 145 U. S. 285, 293, 12 Sup. Ct. 909. See, also, Com. v. Robinson, 1 Gray, 555, 560.
For the error of the court in not sustaining the objection referred to so far as it related to Sparf, the judgment must be reversed as to him. If he were the only defendant, we might withhold any expression of opinion upon other questions raised by the assignments of error. But as some of those questions are important, and may arise upon another trial of Sparf, and especially as they must be now determined with reference to Hansen, we proceed to their examination.
In its charge to the jury, the court, among other things, said: 'What, then, is murder? There are only two kinds of felonious homicide known to the laws of the United States. One is murder, and the other is manslaughter. There are no degrees of murder.' 'There is no definition of 'murder' by any United States statute. We resort to the common law for that. By the common law, murder is the unlawful killing of a human being in the peace of the state, with malice aforethought, either express or implied. Malice, then, is an element in the offense, and discriminates it from the other crime of felonious homicide which I have mentioned, to wit, manslaughter; that is, malice, express or implied, discriminates murder from the offense of manslaughter.' 'Express malice exists when one, by deliberate premeditation and design, formed in advance, to kill or to do bodily harm, the premeditation and design being implied from external circumstances capable of proof, such as lying in wait, antecedent threats, and concerted schemes against a victim. Implied malice is an inference of the law from any deliberate and cruel act committed by one person against another. The two kinds of malice, therefore, to repeat, indicate but one state of mind, established in different ways,the one by circumstances showing premeditation of the homicide, the other by an inference of the law from the act committed; that is, malice is inferred when one kills another without provocation, or when the provocation is not great. Manslaughter is the unlawful killing of a human being without malice, either expressed or implied. I do not consider it necessary, gentlemen, to explain it further, for if a felonious homicide has been committed, of which you are to be the judges from the proof, there is nothing in this case to reduce it below the grade of murder. In other words, it may be in the power of the jury, under the indictment by which these defendants are accused and tried, of finding them guilty of a less crime than murder, to wit, manslaughter, or an attempt to commit murder; yet, as I have said in this case, if a felonious homicide has been committed at all, of which I repeat you are the judges, there is nothing to reduce it below the grade of murder.'
'You are the exclusive judges of the credibility of the witnesses, and, in judging of their credibility, you have a right to take into consideration their prejudices, motives, or feelings of revenge, if any such have been proven or shown by the evidence in the case. If you believe from the evidence that any witness or witnesses have knowingly and willfully testified falsely as to any material fact or point, you are at liberty to disregard entirely the testimony of such witness or witnesses.' 'Gentlemen, I have given you these instructions as carefully as I could, avoiding all references to the testimony; but I do not wish to be misunderstood, and out of abundant caution I say further to you, in giving you these instructions, I may be accident have assumed facts to be proven. If so, you must disregard the assumption. It is not my purpose, nor is it my function, to assume any fact to be proven, nor to suggest to you that any fact has been proven. You are the exclusive judges of the fact. No matter what assumption may appear during the course of the trial in any ruling of mine, or what may appear in any one of these instructions, you are to take this case and consider it, and remember you are the tribunal to which the law has referred the case, and whose judgment the law wants on the case.'
After the jury had been in consultation for a time, they returned into court for further instructions. The colloquy between the court and the jurors is set forth at large in the margin.
The requests for instruction made by the defendants were based upon section 1035 of the Revised Statutes of the United States, providing that 'in all criminal causes the defendant may be found guilty of any offence the commission of which is necessarily included in that with which he is charged in indictment, or may be found guilty of an attempt to commit the offence so charged: provided, that such attempt be itself a separate offence.'
The court below assumed, and correctly, that section 1035 of the Revised Statutes did not authorize a jury in a criminal case to find the defendant guilty of a less offense than the one charged, unless the evidence justified them in so doing. Congress did not intend to invest juries in criminal cases with power arbitrarily to disregard the evidence and the principles of law applicable to the case on trial. The only object of that section was to enable the jury, in case the defendant was not shown to be guilty of the particular crime charged, and if they evidence permitted them to do so, to find him guilty of a lesser offense necessarily included in the one charged, or of the offense of attempting to commit the one charged. Upon a careful scrutiny of the evidence, we cannot find any ground whatever upon which the jury could properly have reached the conclusion that the defendant Hanson was only guilty of an offense included in the one charged, or of a mere attempt to commit the offense charged. A verdict of guilty of an offense less than the one charged would have been in flagrant disregard of all the proof, and in violation by the jury of their obligation to render a true verdict. There was an entire absence of evidence upon which to rest a verdict of guilty of manslaughter or of simple assault. A verdict of that kind would have been the exercise by the jury of the power to commute the punishment for an offense actually committed, and thus impose a punishment different from that prescribed by law.
In State v. Brailsford, 3 Dall. 1, 4, a case in f the court, to decide. But it must be amicable issue, Chief Justice Jay is reported to have said: 'It may not be amiss here, gentlemen, to remind you of the good old rule that on questions of fact it is the province of the jury, on questions of law it is the province of the court, to decide. But it must be observed that, by the same law which recognizes this reasonable distribution of jurisdiction, you have, nevertheless, a right to take upon yourselves to judge of both, and to determine the law as well as the fact in controversy. On this, and on every other, occasion, however, we have no doubt you will pay that respect which is due to the opinion of the court; for, as on the one hand, it is presumed that juries are best judges of facts, it is, on the other hand, presumable that the courts are the best judges of the law. But still both objects are lawfully within your power of decision.' Of the correctness of this report, Mr. Justice Curtis in U. S. v. Morris, 1 Curt. 23, 58, Fed. Cas. No. 15,815, expressed much doubt, for the reason that the chief justice is reported as saying that, in civil cases,and that was a civil case,the jury had the right to decide the law, and because, also, the different parts of the charge conflict with each other; the chief justice, according to the report, saying at the outset that it is the province of the jury to decide questions of fact, and of the court to decide questions of law, and in the succeeding sentence informing the jury that they had the right to take upon themselves the determination of both law and fact. If the chief justice said that it was the province of the court to decide questions of law, and the province of the jury to decide questions of fact, he could not have said that the jury had the right, in a civil case, to judge of and determine both law and fact. 'The whole case,' Mr. Justice Curtis said, 'was an anomaly. It purports to be a trial by jury in the supreme court of the United States of certain issues out of chancery; and the chief justice begins by telling the jury that the facts are all agreed, and the only question is a matter of law, and upon that the whole court were agreed. If it be correctly reported, I can only say it is not in accordance with the views of any other court, so far as I know, in this country or in England, and is certainly not in accordance with the course of the supreme court for many years.'
Certain observations of Chief Justice Marshall in the course of the trial of Burr have sometimes been referred to in support of the contention that the jury in a criminal case are under no legal obligation to accept the law as laid down by the court. But nothing said by him at that trial was inconsistent with the views expressed by eminent jurists in cases to be presently cited. In the course of an opinion relating merely to the order of evidence, the chief justice said: 'Levying of war is a fact which must be decided by the jury. The court may give general instructions on this as on every other question brought before them, but the jury must decide upon it as compounded of fact and law.' 1 Burr's Trial, 470. This language is supposed to justify the contention that the jury in a criminal case are entitled, of right, to determine questions of pure law adversely to the direction of the court. But that no such thought was in the mind of the chief justice is manifest from his written charge to the jury at a subsequent stage of the trial,the accuracy of the report of which has never been disputed,in which he discussed, in the light of the authorities, the question as to what constituted treason.
In the course of that charge he indicated quite distinctly his view of the respective functions of court and jury. 'It has been thought proper,' he said, 'to discuss this question at large, and to review the opinion of the supreme court Ex parte Bollman, 4 Cranch, 75, although this court would be more disposed to leave the question of fact whether an overt act of levying war were committed on Blennerhassett's island to the jury under this explanation of the law, and to instruct them that, unless the assemblage on Blennerhassett's island was an assemblage in force, was a military assemblage in a condiction to make war,it was not levying war, and that they could not construe it into an act of war, than to arrest the further testimony which might be offered to connect the prisoner with that assemblage, or to prove the intention of those who assembled together at that place. This point, however, is not to be understood as decided. It will, perhaps, constitute an essential inquiry in another case.' This language is wholly inconsistent with the theory that the chief justice recognized the right of the jury to disregard the court's view of the law upon any question arising in the case before them. It was consistent only with the theory that the court could speak authoritatively as to the law, while the function of the jury was to respond as to the facts. Again: 'It is the further opinion of the court that there is no testimony whatever which tends to prove that the accused was actually or constructively present when that assemblage did take place; indeed, the contrary is most apparent.' 'The opinion of this court on the order of testimony has frequently been adverted to as deciding this question against the motion. If a contradiction between the two opinions exist, the court cannot perceive it. It was said that levying war is an act compounded of law and fact, of which the jury, aided by the court, must judge. To that declaration the court still adheres.' He concluded his memorable charge in these words: 'The jury have now heard the opinion of the court on the law of the case. They will apply that law to the facts, and will find a verdict of guilty or not guilty as their own consciences may direct.' Again, according to the only recognized report of that trial ever published, the chief justice, in response to certain inquiries of counsel made after the jury returned their verdict, said: 'Without doubt the court intended to deliver merely a legal opinion as to what acts amounted in law to an overt act of levying war, and not whether such an overt act has or has not been proved. It merely stated the law, to which the jury would apply the facts proved. It is their province to say whether according to this statement and the evidence an overt act has been proved or not.' 2 Burr's Trial, 401, 422, 439, 444, 448. The language of the chief justice plainly imports that, while the jury must of necessity often pass upon a question 'compounded of fact and law,' their duty, when considering the evidence, was to apply the law, as given by the court, to the facts proved; and, thus applying the law, return a verdict of guilty or not guilty as their consciences might direct. If he had believed that the jury were entitled, of right, whatever might be the views of the court, to determine for themselves the law of the case, it is impossible that he could have said that 'they will apply that law the law as he declared it to be to the facts.' On the contrary, he observed that the province of the jury was to determine whether the accused was guilty or not guilty, according to his statement of the law as applied to the evidence.
Of course, this court has no means of determining what were the views of Chief Justice Marshall, except by referring to such authorized publications as show what he said while discharging judicial functions. In none of his opinions delivered at the circuit court and published can there be found anything at all in conflict with his declarations at the trial of Burr. And it may be observed that the circumstances attending that trial were such as to induce him to weigh every word embodied in his elaborate written charge to the jury. That he understood the gravity of the occasion, so far as it related to the conduct of the trial, is manifest from his referring in the following language to certain considerations that had been advanced in argument: 'That this court dare not usurp power is most true. That this court dare not shrink from its duty is not less true. No man is desirous of placing himself in a disagreeable situation. No man is desirous of becoming the peculiar subject of calumny. No man, might he let the bitter cup pass from him without selfreproach, would drain it to the bottom. But if he have no choice in the case, if there be no alternative presented to him but a dereliction of duty or the opprobrium of those who are denominated the 'world,' he merits the contempt as well as the indignation of his country who can hesitate which to embrace. That gentlemen, in a case the most interesting, in the zeal with which they advocate particular opinions, and under the conviction in some measure produeed by that zeal, should on each side press their arguments too far, should be impatient at any deliberation in the court, and should suspect of fear the operation of motives to which alone they can ascribe that deliberation, is perhaps a frailty incident to human nature; but, if any conduct on the part of the court could warrant a sentiment that it would deviate to the one side or the other from the line prescribed by duty and by law, that conduct would be viewed by the judges themselves with an eye of extreme severity, and would long be recollected with deep and serious regret.'
In Henfield's Case, Fed. Cas. No. 6,360, Mr. Justice Wilson, with whom sat Mr. Justice Iredell, stated that the jury, in a general verdict, must decide both law and fact, but that 'this did not authorize them to decide it as they pleased,' and that, 'the questions of law coming into joint consideration with the facts, it is the duty of the court to explain the law to the jury, and give it to them in direction.' Whart. St. Tr. 84, 87, 88. This statement of the principle is sometimes referred to in support of the proposition that the jury is not under a legal duty to accept the law as declared by the court in a criminal case. We think it tends to show that it is the province and duty of the jury to apply to the facts of the case the law as given to them by the court 'in direction.'
There is nothing in conflict with this in the Lectures on Law delivered by Mr. Justice Wilson. In one of those lectures, referring to the duties of jurors in criminal cases, he said: 'On questions of law, his the juror's deficiencies will be supplied by the professional directions of the judges, whose duty and whose business it is professionally to direct him; for, as we have seen, verdicts, in criminal cases generally determine the question of law as well as the question of fact. Questions of fact it is his exclusive province to determine. With the consideration of evidence unconnected with the question which he is to try, his attention will not be distracted; for everything of that nature, we presume, will be excluded by the court. The collected powers of his mind, therefore, will be fixed, steadily and without interruption, upon the issue he is sworn to try. This issue is an issue of fact.' 2 Wilson, Works, 386. Other observations found in these lectures, if considered alone, are not so explicit upon the question of the respective functions of court and jury; but, taken in connection with all that he said, it is reasonably clear that when Mr. Justice Wilson spoke of the determination by a jury, in a criminal case, of both law and fact, he meant, only that a general verdict of guilty or not guilty, of necessity, decided every question before them which involved a joint consideration of law and fact, not that the jury could ignore the directions of the court, and take the law into their own hands.
The observations of Mr. Justice Samuel Chase in the Case of Fries, Fed. Cas. No. 5,126, tried for treason, 1800, are supposed to sustain the broad proposition that the jury may, of right, disregard the law as expounded by the court. He undoubtedly did say that while it was the duty of the court, in all criminal cases, to state the law arising on the facts, the jury were to decide 'both the law and facts, on their consideration of the whole case.' Chase, Trial, Append. 45. But on the trial, in the same year, in the circuit court of the United States for the Virginia district, of James Thompson Callender for seditious libel, he was appalled at the suggestion by learned counsel that the jury were entitled, of right, to determine the constitutional validity of the act of congress under which the accused was indicted. Mr. Wirt, counsel for the defendant, said: 'Since, then, the jury have a right to consider the law, and since the constitution is law, the conclusion is certainly syllogistic that the jury have a right to consider the constitution.' But Mr. Justice Chase declined to accept this view. He said: 'The statute on which the traverser is indicted enacts 'that the jury who shall try the cause shall have a right to determine the law and the fact, under the direction of the court, as in other cases.' By this provision I understand that a right is given to the jury to determine what the law is in the case before them, and not to decide whether a statute of the United States produced to them is a law or not, or whether it is void, under an opinion that it is unconstitutional; that is, contrary to the constitution of the United States. I admit that the jury are to compare the statute with the facts proved, and then to decide whether the acts done are prohibited by the law, and whether they amount to the offense described in the indictment. This power the jury necessarily possesses, in order to enable them to decide on the guilt or innocence of the person accused. It is one thing to decide what the law is on the facts proved, and another and a very different thing to determine that the statute produced is no law. To decide what the law is on the facts is an admission that the law exists. If there be no law in the case, there can be no comparison between it and the facts; and it is unnecessary to establish facts before it is ascertained that there is a law to punish the commission of them.' 'It was never pretended,' he bontinued, 'as I ever heard, before this time, that a petit jury in England (from whence our common law is derived), or in any part of the United States, ever exercised such power. If a petit jury can rightfully exercise this power over one statute of congress, they must have an equal right and power over any other statute, and indeed over all the statutes; for no line can be drawn, no restriction imposed, on the exercise of such power; it must rest in discretion only. If this power be once admitted, petit jurors will be superior to the national legislature, and its laws will be subject to their control. The power to abrogate or to make laws nugatory is equal to the authority of making them. The evident consequences of this right in juries will be that a law of congress will be in operation in one state, and not in another. A law to impose taxes will be obeyed in one state, and not in another, unless force be employed to compel submission. The doing of certain acts will be held crim inal, and punished in one state, and similar acts may be held innocent, and even approved and applauded, in another. The effects of the exercise of this power by petit jurors may be readily conceived. It appears to me that the right now claimed has a direct tendency to dissolve the union of the United States, on which, under divine Providence, our political safety, happiness, and prosperity depend.' He concluded his opinion in these words: 'I consider it of the greatest consequence to the administration of justice that the powers of the court and the powers of the petit jury should be kept distinct and separate. I have uniformly delivered the opinion 'that the petit jury have a right to decide the law as well as the fact in criminal cases'; but it never entered into my mind that they, therefore, had a right to determine the constitutionality of any statute of the United States.' Whart. St. Tr. 713, 714, 718.
What Mr. Justice Chase said is quite sufficient to show the mischievous consequences that would flow from the doctrine that the jury may, of right, disregard the directions of the court, and determine the law for themselves; for if, as is contended, the jury in criminal cases are not bound to take the law from the court, it is impossible to deny their absolute right in a case depending entirely upon an act of congress, or a statute of a state, to determine, upon their own responsibility, whether that act or statute is or is not law; that is, whether it is or is not in violation of the constitution.
Mr. Justice Thompson, who became a member of this court in 1823, concurred in the opinion delivered by Kent, J., in People v. Croswell(1804) 3 Johns. Cas. 337, 362, where the court was equally divided, Chief Justice Lewis and Judge Brockholst Livingston, afterwards a justice of this court, holding that to questions of law the court, to questions of fact the jury, must respond. But in his opinion in Pierce v. State, 13 N. H. 356, 564, Chief Justice Parker, referring to Judge Kent's opinion in People v. Croswell, said: 'Mr. Justice Thompson, who concurred in that opinion, must have understood that concurrence to be merely in the opints necessary to the decision of that cause, or have subsequently changed his views; for I have his authority for saying that he has repeatedly ruled that the jury are not judges or the law in criminal cases.' And in the dissenting opinion of Judge Bennett in State v. Croteau, 23 Vt. 14, 63 (where it was held that the jury, in criminal cases, could rightfully decide questions of both law and fact, but which case has been overruled, 65 Vt. 1, 34, 25 Atl. 964), it was said: 'Judge Thompson, whose judicial learning and experience, while on the bench of the supreme court of New York, and on the bench of the United States, were very extensive, thus wrote to a friend some short time before his death: 'I have repeatedly ruled on the trial of criminal cases that it was the right as well as the duty of the court to decide questions of law; and any other rule, it appears to me, would be at war with our whole judicial system, and introduce the utmost confusion in criminal trials. It is true, the jury may disregard the instructions of the court, and in some cases there may be no remedy. But it is still the right of the court to instruct the jury on the law, and the duty of the jury to obey the instructions." See, also, Whart, Cr. Pl. § 810, note 3.
The remarks of Mr. Justice Baldwin in U. S. v. Wilson and Porter, Baldw. 78, 100, 108, Fed. Cas. No. 16,730, have sometimes been referred to as in conflict with the rule that it is the duty of the jury to accept the law as expounded by the court. It is quite true that, in the charge in Wilson's Case, Mr. Justice Baldwin said that, if the jury were prepared to say that the law was different from what the court had announced, they were in the exercise of their constitutional right to do so. But in his charge in Porter's Case he explained what was said in Wilson's Case. After remarking that, if a jury find a prisoner guilty against the court's opinion of the law of the case, a new trial would be granted, as no court would pronounce a judgment on a prisoner against what it believes to be the law, he said: 'This, then, you will understand to be what is meant by your power to determine upon the law; but you will still bear in mind that it is a very old, sound, and valuable maxim that the court answers to questions of law, and the jury to facts. Every day's experience evinces the wisdom of this fule.' Subsequently, in U. S. v. Shive, Baldw. 510, 513, Fed. Cas. No. 16,278, which was an indictment for passing a counterfeit note of the Bank of the United States, and when the question arose as to the right of the jury to pass upon the constitutionality of the act of congress on which the prosecution was founded, Mr. Justice Baldwin said in his charge: 'If juries once exercise this power, we are without a constitution or laws; one jury has the same power as another; you cannot bind those who may take your places; what you declare constitutional to-day another jury may declare unconstitutional to-morrow.'
The question before us received full consideration by Mr. Justice Story in U. S. v. Battiste, 2, Sumn. 240, 243, 244, Fed. Cas. No. 14,545. That was an indictment for a capital offence, and the question was directly presented whether in criminal cases, especially in capital cases, the jury were the judges of the law as well as of the facts. He said: 'My opinion is that the jury are no more judges of the law in a capital or other criminal case, upon the plea of not guilty, than they are in every civil case tried upon the general issue. In each of these cases, their verdict, when general, is necessarilty compounded of law and of fact, and includes both. In each they must necessarily determine the law as well as the fact. In each they have the physical power to disregard rthe law, as laid down to them by the court. But I deny that, in any case, civil or criminal, they have the moral right to decide the law according to their own notions or pleasure. On the contrary, I hold it the most sacred constitutional right of every party accused of a crime that the jury should respond as to the facts, and the court as to the law. It is the duty of the court to instruct the jury as to the law, and it is the duty of the jury to follow the law as it is laid down by the court. This is the right of every citizen, and it is his only protection. If the jury were at liberty to settle the law for themselves, the effect would be, not only that the law itself would be most uncertain, from the different views which different juries might take of it, but in case of error there would be no remedy or redress by the injured party; for the court would not have any right to review the law as it had been settled by the jury.' 'Every person accused as a criminal has a right to be tried according to the law of the land,the fixed law of the land, and not by the law as a jury may understand it, or choose, from wantonness or ignorance of accidental mistake, to interpret it. If I thoutht that the jury were the proper judges of the law in criminal cases, I should hold it may duty to abstain from the responsibility of stating the law to them upon any such trial. But believing, as I do, that every citizen has a right to be tried by the law, and according to the law; that it is his privilege and truest shield against oppression and wrong,I feel it my duty to state my views fully and openly on the present occasion.'
In U. S. v. Morris, 1 Curt. 23, 51, 52, 58, Fed. Cas. No. 15,815, the question, in all of its aspects, was examined by Mr. Justice Curtis with his accustomed care. In that case the contention was that every jury, impaneled in a court of the United States, was the rightful judge of the existence, construction, and effect of every law that was material in a criminal case, and could, of right, and if it did its duty must, decide finally on the constitutional validity of any act of congress which the trial brought in question. Touching the rightful powers and duties of the court and the jury under the constitution in criminal cases, Mr. Justice Curtis, among other things, said: 'The sixth article, after declaring that the constitution, laws, treaties of the United States shall be the supreme law of the land, proceeds, 'And the judges, in every state, shall be bound thereby.' But was it not intended that the constitution, laws, and treaties of the United States should be the supreme law in criminal as well as in civil case? If a state law should make it penal for an officer of the United States to do what an act of congress commands him to do, was not the latter to be supreme over the former? And if so, and in such cases juries finally and rightfully determine the law, and the constitution so means when it speaks of a trial by jury, why was this command laid on the judges alone, who are thus mere advisers of the jury, and may be bound to give sound advice, but have no real power in the matter? It was evidently the intention of the constitution that all persons engaged in making, expounding, and executing the laws, not only under the authority of the United States, but of the several states, should be bound by oath or affirmation to support the constitution of the United States. But no such oath or affirmation is required of jurors, to whom it is alleged the constitution confides the power of expounding that instrument, and not only construing, but holding invalid, any law which may come in question on a criminal trial.' 'In my opinion,' the learned justice proceeded, 'it is the duty of the court to decide every question of law which arises in a criminal trial. If the question touches any matter affecting the course of the trial, such as the competency of a witness, the admissibility of evidence, and the like, the jury receive no direction concerning it. It affects the materials out of which they are to form their verdict, but they have no more concern with it than they would have had if the question had arisen in some other trial. If the question of law enters into the issue, and forms part of it, the jury are to be told that the law is, and they are bound to consider that they are told truly; that law they apply to the facts, as they find them, and thus, passing both on the law and the fact, they, from both, frame their general verdict of guilty or not guilty. Such is my view of the respective duties of the different parts of this tribunal in the trial of criminal case, and I have not found a single decision of any court in England, prior to the formation of the constitution, which conflicts with it.'
It was also contended that the clause in the act of congress, known as the Sedition Law of 1798 (1 Stat. c. 74, § 3), declaring that 'the jury who shall try the cause shall have a right to determine the law and the fact, under the direction of the court, as in other cases,' in the trial of criminal cases, and I have decide the law contraery to the direction of the court. But in response to this view Mr. Justice Curtis said: 'I draw from this the opposite inference; for where was the necessity of this provision, if, by force of the constitution, juries, as such, have both the power and the right to determine all questions in criminal cases; and why are they to be directed by the court?' See, also, Montgomery v. State, 11 Ohio, 427.
But Mr. Justice Curtis considered the question from another point of view, and gave reasons which appear to us entirely conclusive against the proposition that it is for the jury, in every criminal case, to say authoritatively what is the law by which they are to be governed in finding their verdict. He said: 'There is, however, another act of congress which bears directly on this question. The act of the 29th of April, 1802, in section 6, after enacting that, in case of a division of opinion between the judges of the circuit court on any question, such question may be certified to the supreme court, proceeds: 'And shall by the said court be finally decided; and the decision of the supreme court and their order in the premises shall be remitted to the circuit court, and be there entered of record and have effect according to the nature of such judgment and order.' The residue of this section proves that criminal as well as civil cases are embraced in it, and under it many questions arising in criminal cases have been certified to and decided by the supreme court, and persons have been executed by reason of such decisions. Now, can it be, after a question arising in a criminal trial has been certified to the supreme court, and there, in the language of this act, finally decided, and their order remitted here and entered of record, that when the trial comes on the jury may rightfully revise and reverse this final decision? Suppose, in the course of this trial, the judges had divided in opinion upon the question of the constitutionality of the act of 1850, and that, after a final decision thereon by the supreme court and the receipt of its mandate here, the trial should come on before a jury, does the constitution of the United Ststes, which established that supreme court, intend that a jury may, as matter of right, revise and reverse that decision? And, if not, what becomes of this supposed right? Are the decisions of the supreme court binding on juries, and not the decisions of inferior courts? This will hardly be pretended; and if it were, how is it to be determined whether the supreme court has or has not, in some former case, in effect settled a particular question of law? In my judgment, this act of congress is in accordance with the constitution, and designed to effect one of its important and even necessary objects,a uniform exposition and interpretation of the law of the United States,by providing means for a final decision of any question of law,final as respects every tribunal and every part of any tribunal in the country; and, if so, it is not only wholly inconsistent with the alleged power of juries, to the extent of all questions so decided, but it tends strongly to prove that no such right as is claimed does or can exist.'
Again: 'Considering the intense interest excited, the talent and learning employed, and consequently the careful researches made, in England, near the close of the last century, when the law of libel was under discussion in the courts and in parliament, it cannot be doubted that, if any decision, having the least weight, could have been produced in support of the general proposition that juries are judges of the law in criminal cases, it would then have been brought forward. I am not aware that any such was produced. And the decision of the king's bench in Rex v. Dean of St. Asaph, 3 Term R. 428, note, and the answers of the twelve judges to the questions propounded by the house of lords, assume, as a necessary postulate, what Lord Mansfield so clearly declares in terms, that, by the law of England, juries cannot rightfully decide a question of law. Passing over what was said by ardent partisans and eloquent counsel, it will be found that the great contest concerning what is known as 'Mr. Fox's Libel Bill' was carried on upon quite a different ground by its leading friends,a ground which, while it admits that the jury are not to decide the law, denies that the libelous intent is matter of law, and asserts that it is so mixed with the fact that, under the general issue, it is for the jury to find it as a fact. 34 Ann. Reg. 170; 29 Parl. Deb. Such I understand to be the effect of that famous declaratory law. 32 Geo. III. c. 60. * * * I conclude, then, that, when the constitution of the United States was founded, it was a settled rule of the common law that, in criminal as well as in civil cases, the court decided the law, and the jury the facts; and it cannot be doubted that this must have an important effect in determining what is meant by the constitution when it adopts a trial by jury.'
In U. S. v. Greathouse, 4 Sawy. 457, 464, Fed. Cas. No. 15,254, which was an indictment for trason, Mr. Justice Field said: 'There prevails a very general, but an erroneous, opinion that in all criminal cases the jury are the judges as well of the law as of the fact; that is, that they have the right to disregard the law as laid down by the court, and to follow their own notions on the subject. Such is not the right of the jury.' 'It is their duty to take the law from the court, and apply it to the facts of the case. It is the province of the court, and of the court alone, to determine all questions of law arising in the progress of a trial; and it is the province of the jury to pass upon the evidence, and determine all contested questions of fact. The responsibility of deciding correctly as to the law rests solely with the court, and the responsibility of finding correctly the facts rests solely with the jury.'
Turning, now, to cases in the state courts, we find that in Com. v. Porter, 10 Metc. 263, 276, the supreme judicial court of Massachusetts, speaking by Chief Justice Shaw, delivering the unanimous judgment of the court composed of himself and Justices Wilde, Dewey, and Hubbard, held that it was a well-settled principle, lying at the foundation of jury trials, admitted and recognized over since jury trial had been adopted as an established and settled mode of proceeding in courts of justice, that it was the proper province and duty of judges to consider and decide all questions of law, and the proper province and duty of the jury to decide all questions of fact. In the same case, the court, observing that the safety, efficiency, and purity of jury trial depend upon the steady maintenanceand practical application of this principle, and adverting to the fact that a jury, in rendering a general verdict, must necessarily pass upon the whole issue, compounded of the law and of the fact, and thus incidentally pass on questions of law, said: 'It is the duty of the court to instruct the jury on all questions of law which appear to arise in the cause, and also upon all questions, pertinent to the issue, upon which either party may request the direction of the court upon matters of law. And it is the duty of the jury to receive the law from the court, and to conform their judgment and decision to such instructions, as far as they understand them, in applying the law to the facts to be found by them; and it is not within the legitimate province of the jury to revise, reconsider, or decide contrary to such opinion or direction of the court in matter of law.' Page 286.
Considering, in the light of the authorities, the grounds upon which a verdict of guilty or not guilty, in a criminal case, was held, at common law, to be conclusive, he observed that though the jury had the power they had not the right to decide, that is, to adjudicate, on both law and evidence. He said: 'The result of these several rules and principles is that, in practice, the verdict of a jury, both upon the law and the fact, is conclusive; because, from the nature of the proceeding, there is no judicial power by which the conclusion of law thus brought upon the record by that verdict can be reversed, set aside, or inquired into. A general verdict, either of conviction or acquittal, does embody had declare the result of both the law and the fact, and there is no mode of separating them on the record so as to ascertain whether the jury passed their judgment on the law, or only on the evidence. The law authorized them to adjudicate definitively on the evidence; the law presumes that they acted upon correct rules of law given then by the judge. The verdict, therefore, stands conclusive and unquestionable, in point both of law and fact. In a certain limited sense, therefore, it may be said that the jury have a power and legal right to pass upon both the law and the fact. And this is sufficient to account for many and most of the dicta in which the proposition is stated. But it would be more accurate to state that it is the right of the jury to return a general verdict; this draws after it, as a necessary consequence, that they incidentally pass upon the law. But here, again, is the question, what is intended by 'passing upon the law'? I think it is by embracing it in their verdict, and thus bringing it upon the record, with their finding of the facts. But does it follow that they may rightfully and by authority of the common law, by which all are conscientiously bound to goven their conduct, proceed upon the same grounds and principles in the one case as the other? What the jury have a right to do, and what are the grounds and principles upon which they are in duty and conscience bound to act and govern themselves in the exercise of that right, are two very distinct questions. The latter is the one we have do deal with. Suppose they have a right to find a general verdict, and by that verdict to conclude the prosecutor in the matter of law, still it is an open and very different question whether, in making up that verdict and thereby embracing the law, they have the same right to exercise their own reason and judgment, against the statement of the law by the judge, to adjudicate on the law, as unquestionably they have on the fact. The affirmative of this proposition is maintained by the defendant in this case, and by others in many of the cases before us. If I am right in the assumption that the judge is to adjudge the law, and the jury the fact, only, it furnishes the answer to this question to what extent the jury adjudicate the law; and it is that they receive authoritative directions from the court, and act in conformity with them, though by their verdict they thus embrace the law with the fact, which they may rightfully adjudicate.'
Alluding to the history of this question in England, and particularly, as did Mr. Justice Curtis, to the controversy in Rex v. Dean of St. Asaph, 3 Term R. 428, note, and which resulted in the passage by parliament, after the separation of this country from Great Britain, of the libel act (St. 32 Geo. III.), and observing that both parties to that controversy assumed the force and existence of the rule as the ancient rule of the common law, the court said: 'The court and high prerogative party say judges answer to the law, and jurors to the fact; the question of guilty or not, in the peculiar form of a criminal prosecution for libel, after the jury have found the fact of publication and truth of the innuendoes, is a question of law, and therefore must be declared exclusively by the court. The popular party, assuming the same major proposition, say the question of guilty or not is question of fact, and can be found only by the jury. It appears to me, therefore, as I stated on the outset, that considering the course of the controversy, the earnestness and ability with which every point was contested, and the thorough examination of the ancient authorities, this concurrence of views on the point in question affords strong proof that, up to the period of our separation from England, the fundamental definition of trials by jury depended on the universal maxim, without an exception, 'Ad quaestionem facti respondent juratores, ad quaestionem juris respondent judices."
The Anthes Case, it may be observed, arose under a statute enacted in 1855, after the decision in the Porter Case. But the court held that that statute did not confer upon juries, in criminal trials, the power of determining questions of law against the instruction of the court. And the chief justice saidJustices Metcalf and Merrick concurringthat, if the statute could be so interpreted as to prescribe that the jury, consistently with their duty, may decide the law upon their judgment contrary to the decision and instruction of the court before whom the trial was had, such enactment would be beyond the scope of legitimate legislative power, repugnant to the constitution, and, of course, inoperative and void. See, also, Com. v. Rock, 10 Gray, 4, where the doctrine announced in Com. v. Anthes were reaffirmed, no one of the members of the court expressing a dissent.
This question was also fully considered in Montee v. Com., 3 J. J. March. 132, 149, 151, in which case Chief Justice Robertson said: 'The circuit judge would be a cipher, and a criminal trial before him a farce, if he had no right to decide all questions of law whihc might arise in the progress of the case. The jury are the exclusive judges of the facts. In this particular they cannot be controlled, and ought not to be instructed, by the court. They are also, ex necessitate, the ultimate judges, in one respect, of the law. If they acquit, the judge cannot grant a new trial, how much soever they have misconceived or disregarded the law.' 'If the court had no right to decide on the law, error, confusion, uncertainty, and licentiousness would characterize the criminal trials; and the safety of the accused might be as much endangered as the stability of public justice would certainly be.' In Pierce v. State, 13 N. H. 536, 554, it was held to be inconsistent with the spirit of the constitution that questions of law, and, still less, questions of constitutional law, should be decided by the verdict of the jury, contrary to the instructions of the court.
So, in Hamilton v. People, 29 Mich. 173, 192, Mr. Justice Campbell, as the organ of the court, said: 'We understand the uniform practice and the decided weight of opinion to require that the judge give his views of the law to the jury as authority, and not as a matter to be submitted to their review.' And in People v. Anderson, 44 Cal. 65, 70: 'In this state it is so well settled as no longer to be open to debate that it is the duty of a jury, in a criminal case, to take the law from the court.' The principle was accurately stated by Chief Justice Ames, speaking for the supreme court of Rhode Island, when he said: 'The line between the duties of a court and jury in the trial of causes at law, both civil and criminal, is perfectly well defined; and the rigid observance of it is of the last importance to the administration of systematic justice. Whilst, on the one hand, the jury are the sole, ultimate judges of the facts, they are, on the other, to receive the law applicable to the case before them solely from the publicly given instructions of the court. In this way, court and jury are made responsible, each in its appropriate department, for the part taken by each in the trial and decision of causes; and in this way alone can errors of fact and errors of law be traced, for the purpose of correction, to their proper sources. If the jury can receive the law of a case on trial in any other mode than from the instructions of the court, given in the presence of parties and counsel, how are their errors of law, with any certainty, to be detected, and how, with any certainty, therefore, to be corrected? It is a statute right of parties here following, too, the ancient course of the common lawto have the law given by the court, in their presence, to the jury, to guide their decision, in order that every error in matter of law may be known and corrected.' State v. Smith, 6 R. I. 33, 34.
In Pennsylvania, in the case of Com. v. Sherry (reported in the appendix to Wharton's treatise on Homicide), Judge Rogers, a jurist of high reputation, thus charged the jury in a capital case: 'You are, it is true, judges in a criminal case, in one sense, of both law and fact; for your verdict, as in civil cases, must pass on law and fact together. If you acquit, you interpose a final bar to a second prosecution, no matter how entirely your verdict may have been in opposition to the views expressed by the court. * * * It is important for you to keep this distinction in mind, remembering that, while you have the physical power, by an acquittal, to discharge a defendant from further prosecution, you have no moral power to do so, against the law laid down by the court. * * * For your part, your duty is to receive the law, for the purposes of this trial, from the court. If an error injurious to the prisoner occurs, it will be rectified by the revision of the court in banc. But an error resulting from either a conviction or acquittal, against the law, can never be rectified. In the first case, an unnecessary stigma is affixed to the character of a man who was not guilty of the offense with which he is charged. In the second case, a serious injury is effected by the arbitrary and irremediable discharge of a guilty man. You will see from these considerations the great importance of the preservation, in criminal as well as in civil cases, of the maxim that the law belongs to the court, and the facts to the jury.' About the same time, Judge Sergeant charged a jury: 'The point, if you believe the evidence on both sides, is one of law, on which it is your duty to receive the instructions of the court. If you believe the evidence in the whole case, you must find the defendant guilty.' Com. v. Van Sickle, Brightly (Pa.) 73. To the same effect, substantially, was the language of Chief Justice Gibson, who, when closing a charge in a capital case, said, 'If the evidence on these points fail the prisoner, the conclusion of his guilt will be irresistible, and it will be your duty to draw it.' Com. v. Harman, 4 Pa. St. 269. In a more recent case (Kane v. Com., 89 Pa. St. 522), Sharswood, C. J., said that the power of the jury to judge of the law in a criminal case was one of the most valuable securities guarantied by the bill of rights of Pennsylvania. But in a later case, Nicholson v. Com., 96 Pa. St. 505, it was said: 'The court had an undoubted right to instruct the jury as to the law, and to warn them as they did against finding contrary to it. This is very different from telling them that they must find the defendant guilty, which is what is meant by a binding instruction in criminal cases.' In Com. v. McManus, 143 Pa. St. 64, 85, 21 Atl. 1018, and 22 Atl. 761, it was adjudged that the statement by the court was the best evidence of the law within the reach of the jury, and that the jury should be guided by what the court said as to the law. And this view the court, speaking by Chief Justice Paxson, said was in harmony with Kane v. Com.
The question has recently been examined by the supreme court of Vermont, and after an elaborate review of the authorities, English and American, that court, by a unanimous judgment,overruling State v. Croteau, 23 Vt. 14, and all the previous cases which had followed that case,said: 'We are thus led to the conclusion that the doctrine that jurors are the judges of the law in criminal cases is untenable; that it is contrary to the fundamental maxims of the common law from which it is claimed to take its origin; contrary to the uniform practice and decisions of the courts of Great Britain, where our jury system had its beginning, and where it matured; contrary to the great weight of authority in this country; contrary to the spirit and meaning of the constitution of the United States; repugnant to the constitution of this state; repugnant to our statute relative to the reservation of questions of law in criminal cases, and passing the same to the supreme court for final decision.' State v. Burpee, 65 Vt. 1, 34, 25 Atl. 964.
These principles are supported by a very large number of adjudications, as will be seen by an examination of the cases cited in margin.
To the same purport are the text writers. 'In theory, therefore,' says Judge Cooley, 'the rule of law would seem to be that it is the duty of the jury to receive and follow the law as delivered to them by the court; and such is the clear weight of authority.' Const. Lim. 323, 324. Greenleaf, in his treattise on the Law of Evidence, says: 'In trials by jury, it is the province of the presiding judge to determine all questions on the admissibility of evidence to the jury, as well as to instruct them in the rules of law by which it is to be weighed. Whether there be any evidence or not is a question for the judge; whether it is sufficient evidence is a question for the jury.' 'Where the question is mixed, consisting of law and fact, so intimately blended as not to be easily susceptible of separate decision, it is submitted to the jury, who are first instructed by the judge in the principles and rules of law by which they are to be governed in finding a verdict, and these instructions they are bound to follow.' Volume 1, § 49. Starkie, in his treatise on Evidence, observes, 'Where the jury find a general verdict they are bound to apply the law as delivered by the court, in criminal as well as civil cases.' Page 816. So, in Phillips on Evidence: 'They the jury are not in general, either in civil or criminal cases, judges of the law. They are bound to find the law as it is propounded to them by the court. They may, indeed, find a general verdict, including both law and fact; but if, in such verdict, they find the law contrary to the instructions of the court, they thereby violate their oath.' 4 Cowen & Hill's Notes (3d Ed.) p. 2. See, also, 1 Tayl. Ev. §§ 21-24; 1 Best, Ev. (Morgan's Ed.) § 82.
In 1 Cr. Law Mag. 51, will be found a valuable note to the case of Kane v. Com., prepared by Mr. Wharton, in which the authorities are fully examined, and in which he says: 'It would be absurd to say that the determination of the law belongs to the jury, not court, if the court has power to set aside that which the jury determines. We must hold, to enable us to avoid the inconsistency, that, subject to the qualification that all acquittals are final, the law in criminal cases is to be determined by the court. In this way we have our liberties and rights determined, not by an irresponsible, but by a responsible, tribunal; not by a tribunal ignorant of the law, but by a tribunal trained to and disciplined by the law; not by an irreversible tribunal, but by a reversible tribunal; not by a tribunal which makes its own law, but by a tribunal that obeys the law as made. In this way we maintain two fundamental maxims. The first is that, while to facts answer juries, to the law answers the court. The second, which is still more important, is 'Nullum crimen, nulla poena, sine lege.' Unless there be a violation of law preannounced, and this by a constant and responsible tribunal, there is no crime, and can be no punishment.' 1 Cr. Law Mag. 56. The same author, in his treatise on Pleading and Practice, concludes his examination of the question in these words: 'The conclusion we must therefore accept is that the jury are no more judges of law in criminal than in civil cases, with the qualification that, owing to the peculiar doctrine of autrefois acquit, a criminal acquitted cannot be overhauled by the court. In the federal courts such is now the established rule.' Sections 809, 810.
Forsyth, in his History of Trial by Jury,a work of merit, discusses the doctrine advanced by some that the jury were entitled in all cases, where no special pleas have been put on the record, to give a general verdict according to their own views of the law, in criminal as well as in civil cases. He says: 'It is impossible to uphold the doctrine. It is founded on a confusion between the ideas of power and right.' 'Indeed, it is difficult to understand how any one acquainted with the principles and settled practice of the English law can assert that it sanctions the doctrine which is here combated.' Again: 'The distinction between the province of the judge and that of the jury is, in the English law, clearly defined, and observed with jealous accuracy. The jury must in all cases determine the value and effect of evidence which is submitted to them. They must decide what degree of credit is to be given to a witness, and hold the balance between conflicting probabilities. The law throws upon them the whole responsibility of ascertaining facts in dispute, and the judge does not attempt to interfere with the exercise of their unfettered discretion in this respect. But, on the other hand, the judge has his peculiar duty in the conduct of a trial. He must determine whether the kind of evidence offered is such as ought or ought not to be submitted to the jury, and what liabilities it imposes. When any questions of law arise, he alone determines them, and their consideration is absolutely withdrawn from the jury, who must in such cases follow the direction of the judge; or if they perversely refuse to do so, their verdict (in civil cases) will be set aside, and a new trial granted.' Pages 235, 236 (Morgan's Ed.).
Worthington, in his Inquiry into Power of Juries, an English work Published in 1825, and often cited in the adjudged cases, says: 'Were they the jury permitted to decide the law, the principles of justice would be subverted; the law would become as variable as the prejudices, the inclinations, and the passions of men. If they could legally decide upon questions of law, their decision must, of necessity, be final and conclusive, which would involve an absurdity in all judicial proceedings, and would be contradictory to the fundamental principles of our jurisprudence.' 'The jury, when called upon to decide facts which are complicated with law, are therefore constitutionally, and must be, from the nature and intention of the institution, bound to seek and to obey the direction of the judge with respect to the law. It becomes their duty to apply to the law thus explained to them the facts (which it is their exclusive province to find), and thus they deliver a verdict compounded of law and fact, but they do not determine or decide upon the law in any case.' Pages 193, 194.
Judge Thompson, in his work on Trials (sections 1016, 1017), thus states the principles: 'The judge decides questions of law; the jury, questions of fact.' So, in Proff. Jury, § 375: 'The preponderance of judicial authority in this country is in favor of the doctrine that the jury should take the law from the court, and apply it to the evidence under its direction.'
The language of some judges and statesmen in the early history of the country, implying that the jury were entitled to disregard the law as expounded by the court, is perhaps to be explained by the fact that 'in many of the states the arbitrary temper of the colonial judges, holding office directly from the crown, had made the independence of the jury, in law as well as in fact, of much popular importance.' Whart. Cr. Pl. (8th Ed.) § 806; Williams v. State, 32 Miss. 389, 396.
It is to be observed that those who have maintained the broad position that a jury may, of right, disregard the law as declared by the court, cite the judgment of Chief Justice Vaughan in Bushell's Case, Vaughan, 135. In that case the accused were acquitted by a general verdict, in opposition, as it was charged, to the directions of the court. And the question presented upon habeas corpus was whether, for so doing, they were subject to be fined, and committed to prison until the fine was paid. Upon a careful examination of the elaborate opinion in that case, it will become clear that the fundamental proposition decided was that in view of the different functions of court and jury, and because a general verdict, of necessity, resolves 'both law and fact complicately, and not the fact by itself,' it could never be proved, where the case went to the jury upon both law and facts, that the jurors did not proceed upon their view of the evidence. Chief Justice Vaughan said that the words in the warrant, 'that the jury did acquit against the direction of the court in matter of law, literally taken, and de plano, are insignificant, and not intelligible, for no issue can be joined of matter in law; no jury can be charged with the trial of matter in law barely; no evidence ever was or can be given to a jury of what is law or not, nor no such oath can be given to or taken by a jury, to try matter in law, nor no attaint can lie for such a false oath.' Id. 143. Touching the distinction between the oath of a witness and that of a juror, he said: 'A witness swears but to what hath fallen under his senses. But a juryman swears to what he can infer and conclude from the testimony of such witnesses, by the act and force of his own understanding, to be the fact inquired after, which differs nothing in the reason, though much in the punishment, from what a judge, out of various cases considered by him infers to be law in the question before him.' Id. 139, 142.
In referring to the opinion in Bushell's Case, Mr. Justice Curtis well observed that it would be found that Chief Justice Vaughan 'confines himself to a narrow, though, for the case, a conclusive, line of argument,that, the general issue embracing fact as well as law, it can never be proved that the jury believed the testimony on which the fact depended, and in reference to which the direction was given, and so they cannot be shown to be builty of any legal misdemeanor in returning a verdict, though apparently against the direction of the court in matter of law.' And this is the view of the opinion in Bushell's Case, expressed by Hallam in his Constitutional History of England (chapter 13).
A similar criticism was made by the supreme judicial court of Massachusetts in the Case of Anthes. Chief Justice Shaw, after stating the principles involved in Bushell's Case, said: 'It may be remarked that from the improved views of the nature of jury trials, during the two hundred years which have elapsed since the decision of Chief Justice Vaughan, the juror is now in no more danger of punishment for giving an erroneous judgment in matter of fact than a judgeis for giving an erroneous judgment in matter of law. But his statement clearly implies that the judge, within his appropriate sphere, is to act by the force of his reason and understanding, and, by the aid of his knowledge of the law and all appropriate means, to adjudge all questions of law, and direct the jury thereon; and in like manner the jury, by the force of their reason and understanding, acting upon all the competent evidence in the case, to reason, weigh evidence, draw inferences, and adjudge the question of fact embraced in the issue. Again: 'In these cases the jury, and not the judge, resolve and find what the fact is. Therefore, always, in discreet and lawful assistance of the jury, the judge's direction is hypothetical and upon supposition, and not positive, upon coercion, namely: 'If you find the fact thus leaving it to them what to find, then you are to find for the plaintiff; but, if you find the fact thus, then it is for the defendant.' Vaughan, 144." 'It is strange,' Chief Justice Shaw felt constrained to say, 'that the authority of Vaughan, C. J., in this case, should be cited, as it has been, to prove that a juror, in finding a general verdict, embracing law and fact, being sworn to try the issue, must find his verdict upon his own conviction and conscience, relying, in support of the proposition, upon the following words of Vaughan, C. J.: 'A man cannot see by another's eye, nor hear by another's ear. No more can a man decide and infer the thing to be resolved by another's understanding or reasoning.' Id. 148.' Had these words been applied to the whole issue embraced in a general verdict, as would be implied from the manner of referring to them, they would have countenanced the proposition; but they are used expressly to illustrate the position that the jury cannot be required implicitly to give a verdict by the dictates and authority of the judge. 'I refer,' Chief Justice Shaw continued, 'only to one other passage, which serves as a key to the whole judgment. He says: 'That decantatum in our books, 'Ad quaestionem facti non respondent judices, ad quaestionem legis non respondent juratores,' literally taken, is true, for if it be demanded, what is the fact? the judge cannot answer; if be asked, what is the law in the case? the jury cannot answer it.' Id. 149.' All this tends to show that the leading thought in the opinion of Chief Justice Vaughan was that while the jury cannot answer as to the law, nor the court as to the fact, a general verdict, compounded of law and fact, of necessity determines both as to the case on trial.
In Townsend's Case, an office taken by virtue of a writ of mandamus, and decided in the sixteenth century, the court said: 'For the office of twelve men is no other than to inquire of matters of fact, and not to adjudge what the law is, for that is the office of the court, and not of the jury; and if they find the matter of fact at large, and further say that thereupon the law is so, where in truth the law is not so, the judges shall adjudge according to the m