Source: https://www.legalcrystal.com/case/100141/ferguson-vs-georgia
Timestamp: 2020-04-08 02:13:15
Document Index: 667648376

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 38', '§ 38', '§ 38', '§ 38', '§ 38', '§ 38', '§ 3481', '§ 38', '§ 38', '§ 38', '§ 38', '§ 38', '§ 38', '§ 38']

Ferguson Vs Georgia - Citation 100141 - Court Judgment | LegalCrystal
Ferguson Vs. Georgia - Court Judgment
LegalCrystal Citation legalcrystal.com/100141
Case Number 365 U.S. 570
ferguson v. georgia - 365 u.s. 570 (1961) u.s. supreme court ferguson v. georgia, 365 u.s. 570 (1961) ferguson v. georgia no. 44 argued november 14-15, 1960 decided march 27, 1961 365 u.s. 570 appeal from the supreme court of georgia syllabus the georgia code, § 38-416, makes a person charged with a criminal offense incompetent to testify under oath in his own behalf at his trial; but § 38-415 gives him the right to make an unsworn statement to the jury without subjecting himself to cross-examination. at the trial in a state court in which appellant was convicted of murder, his counsel was denied the right to ask him any questions when he took the stand to make his unsworn statement. held: this application of §.....
U.S. Supreme Court Ferguson v. Georgia, 365 U.S. 570 (1961)
Held: this application of § 38-415 denied appellant the effective assistance of his counsel at a crucial point in his trial, and it violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Pp. 365 U. S. 570 -596.
The only question which the appellant properly brings before us is whether this application by the Georgia courts of § 38-415 denied the appellant "the guiding hand of counsel at every step in the proceedings against him," Powell v. State of Alabama, 287 U. S. 45 , 287 U. S. 69 , within the requirements of due process in that regard as imposed upon the States by the Fourteenth Amendment. See also Chandler v. Fretag, 348 U. S. 3 .
Appellant raises no question as to the constitutional validity of § 38-416, the incompetency statute. [ Footnote 1 ] However, decision of the question which is raised under § 38-415 necessarily involves consideration of both statutes. Historically, these provisions have been intertwined.
The disqualification of parties as witnesses characterized the common law for centuries. Wigmore traces its remote origins to the contest for judicial hegemony between the developing jury trial and the older modes of trial, notably compurgation and wager of law. See 2 Wigmore, Evidence, pp. 674-683. Under those old forms, the oath itself was a means of decision. See Thayer, Preliminary Treatise on Evidence, pp. 24-34. Jury trial replaced decision by oath with decision of the jurors based on the evidence of witnesses; with this change: "[T]he party was naturally deemed incapable of being such a witness." 2 Wigmore, p. 682. Incompetency of the parties in civil cases seems to have been established by the end of the sixteenth century. See 9 Holdsworth, History of English Law, p. 194. In time, the principal rationale of the rule became the possible untrustworthiness of the party's testimony; for the same reason, disqualification was applied in the seventeenth century to interested nonparty witnesses. [ Footnote 2 ]
Stephen, supra, p. 326. In the process, the defendant could offer by way of explanation material that would later be characterized as testimony. 2 Wigmore, p. 684. In the seventeenth century, however, he was allowed to call witnesses in his behalf; the right to have them sworn was accorded by statute for treason in 1695 and for all felony in 1701. 7 Will. III, c. 3; 1 Anne, St. 2, c. 9. See Thayer, supra, pp. 157-161, and n. 4; 2 Wigmore, pp. 685-686. A distinction was drawn between the accused and his witnesses -- they gave evidence, but he did not. See 2 Wigmore, pp. 684-685, and n. 42; 9 Holdsworth, supra, pp. 195-196. The general acceptance of the interest rationale as a basis for disqualification reinforced this distinction, since the criminal defendant was, of course, par excellence an interested witness. "The old common law shuddered at the idea of any person testifying who had the least interest." State v. Barrows, 76 Me. 401, 409. See Benson v. United States, 146 U. S. 325 , 146 U. S. 336 -337.
Disqualification for interest was thus extensive in the common law when this Nation was formed. 3 Bl.Comm. 369. [ Footnote 3 ] Here, as in England, criminal defendants were deemed incompetent as witnesses. In Rex v. Lukens, 1 Dall. 5, 1 U. S. 6 , decided in 1762, a Pennsylvania court refused
to swear a defendant as a witness, holding that the issue there is question "must be proved by indifferent witnesses." Georgia, by statute, adopted the common law of England in 1784, and " . . . the rules of evidence belonging to it . . . [were] in force there. . . ." Doe v. Winn, 5 Pet. 233, 30 U. S. 241 . Georgia therefore followed the incompetency rule for criminal defendants long before it was given statutory form by the Act of 1866. See Jones v. State, 1 Ga. 610; Roberts v. State, 189 Ga. 36, 40-41, 5 S.E.2d 340, 343. [ Footnote 4 ]
been earlier grants of capacity in certain other courts. Best Evidence (Lely ed. 1893), pp. 158-159. Lord Brougham's Act of 1851, 14 & 15 Vict., c. 99, virtually abolished the incompetency of parties in civil cases. [ Footnote 5 ]
The qualification of criminal defendants to give sworn evidence if they wished came last. The first statute was apparently that enacted by Maine in 1859 making defendants competent witnesses in prosecutions for a few crimes. Maine Acts 1859, c. 104. This was followed in Maine in 1864 by the enactment of a general competency statute for criminal defendants, the first such statute in the English-speaking world. The reform was largely the work of John Appleton of the Supreme Court of Maine, an American disciple of Bentham. Within 20 years. most of the States now comprising the Union had followed Maine's lead. A federal statute to the same effect was adopted in 1878, 20 Stat. 30, 18 U.S.C. § 3481. Before the end of the century, every State except Georgia had abolished the disqualification. [ Footnote 6 ]
came in England with the enactment in 1898 of the Criminal Evidence Act, 61 & 62 Vict., c. 36. [ Footnote 7 ] Various States of Australia had enacted competency statutes even before the mother country, as did Canada and New Zealand. Competency was extended to defendants in Northern Ireland in 1923, in the Republic of Ireland in 1924, and in India in 1955. [ Footnote 8 ]
People v. Thomas, 9 Mich. 314, 320-321 (concurring opinion). See also Ruloff v. People, 45 N.Y. 213, 221-222; People v. Tyler, 36 Cal. 522, 528-530; State v. Cameron, 40 Vt. 555, 565-566; 1 Am.L.Rev. 443; Maury, Validity of Statutes Authorizing the Accused to Testify, 14 Am.L.Rev. 753. [ Footnote 9 ]
The position of many who supported competency gave credence to these fears. Neither Bentham nor Appleton was a friend of the privilege against self-incrimination. [ Footnote 10 ] While Appleton justified competency as a necessary protection
for the innocent, he also believed that incompetency had served the guilty as a shield, and thus disserved the public interest. Competency, he thought, would open the accused to cross-examination, and permit an unfavorable inference if he declined to take the stand to exculpate himself. [ Footnote 11 ]
60 Hansard, supra, pp. 679-680. [ Footnote 12 ]
antedated the nineteenth century, [ Footnote 13 ] its strong sponsorship by English judges of that century is explained by their desire for a mitigation of the rigors of that rule. Baron Alderson said:
Reg. v. Dyer, 1 Cox C.C. 113, 114. See also Reg. v. Malings, 8 Car. & P. 242; Reg. v. Walkling, 8 C. & P. 243; Reg. v. Manzano, 2 F. & F. 64; Reg. v. Williams, 1 Cox C.C. 363. Judge Stephen's sponsorship of the practice was especially influential. See Reg. v. Doherty, 16 Cox C.C. 306. See also Reg. v. Shimmin, 15 Cox C.C. 122; 60 Hansard, supra, p. 657. It became so well established in England that it was expressly preserved in the Criminal Evidence Act of 1898. [ Footnote 14 ]
The practice apparently was followed in this country at common law in a number of States, and received statutory recognition in some. Michigan passed the first such statute in 1861; unlike the Georgia statute of 1868, it provided that the prisoner should be subject to cross-examination on his statement. See People v. Thomas, 9 Mich. 314. [ Footnote 15 ] The Georgia Supreme Court, in one of the early
Coxwell v. State, 66 Ga. 309, 316-317. [ Footnote 16 ]
Rex v. Krafchenko, [1914] 17 D.L.R. 244, 250 (Man.K.B.). [ Footnote 17 ]
"How is a jury to understand that it is to take the statement for what it is worth, if it is told that it cannot regard it as evidence [ i.e., proof] of the facts alleged?"
7 Ga.B.J. 432, 433 (1945). [ Footnote 18 ]
p. 287 U. S. 69 , he may fail properly to introduce, or to introduce at all, what may be a perfect defense. " . . . [T]hough he be not guilty, he faces the danger of conviction because he does not know how to establish his innocence." Ibid. The treatment accorded the unsworn statement in the Georgia courts increases this peril for the accused. The words of Cooley, J., in his opinion for the Michigan Supreme Court in Annis v. People, 13 Mich. 511, 519-520, fit his predicament.
or to put together his thoughts in consecutive order anywhere, it will not be surprising if his explanation is incoherent, or if it overlooks important circumstances. [ Footnote 19 ]"
We therefore hold that, in effectuating the provisions of § 38-415, Georgia, consistently with the Fourteenth Amendment, could not, in the context of § 38-416, deny appellant the right to have his counsel question him to elicit his statement. We decide no more than this. Our decision does not turn on the facts that the appellant was tried for a capital offense and was represented by employed counsel. The command of the Fourteenth Amendment also applies in the case of an accused tried for a noncapital offense, or represented by appointed counsel. For otherwise, in Georgia, "the right to be heard by counsel would be of little worth." Chandler v. Fretag, 348 U. S. 3 , 348 U. S. 10 .
The current citations to these statutes are collected in the Appendix to this opinion, post, p. 365 U. S. 596 .
The origins probably lie in the necessity for the prisoner to defend himself during the early development of English criminal law. See p. 365 U. S. 573 , supra. Even after the defendant was allowed to have witnesses in his behalf in England, he still had no right to be heard by counsel, except for treason, until the act of 1836, and his participation in the trial remained of major importance; as before, "a prisoner was obliged, in the nature of the case, to speak for himself." Reg. v. Doherty, 16 Cox C.C. 306, 309. Although the practice developed in the eighteenth century of allowing counsel to advise the accused during the trial and to cross-examine the Crown's witnesses, counsel was still not permitted to address the jury. Stephen, supra, p. 424. The defendant continued to do this in his own behalf. See 1 Chitty, Criminal Law (5th Am. ed.), p. 623; Bentham, supra, bk. IX, pt. V, c. III, p. 496. See generally 26 Austral.L.J. 166.
rule of § 38-416 that not only must they be considered together, as the Court expressly recognizes, but they must be allowed to stand or fall together, as a single unitary concept, uncircumscribed by the accident of divisive codification. The section today struck down, § 38-415, is not even intelligible except in terms of the incompetency imposed by § 38-416. * Were the latter rule not codified, its proscription would have to be understood as § 38-415's operative premise of common law disability. The purported boon of § 38-415 was founded on that disability, against the hardships of which, nowhere else presently imposed, it was intended to at least partially relieve. I would not withhold adjudication because of the fact of codification, nor merely on account of the procedural dodge resorted to by counsel.