Opinion ID: 1942700
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Instruction Misquotation of the Evidence

Text: The defendant secondly complains that the presiding Justice in his instructions to the jury misquoted the evidence. That part of the charge under attack reads as follows: You are the sole judges of the facts. We have you here for that purpose. And we expect you to use your intelligence, your wisdom, and your experience in interpreting what these people say, and in determining whether or not the principles that are required have been proven in accordance with the law, not your sympathies, not because you are sorry for Mr. Gilbert because `he had his head split open' and blood streaming down in his face and clothes, not because you are angry perhaps with Mr. Childs because he struck Mr. Gilbert with a flashlight. Our verdicts we hope, and certainly the law does not expect or want, or recognize a verdict brought about by anger or sympathy or any other emotional fact. There are certain basic factual matters that have to be proven; we expect the Jury will determine whether these factual matters have been proven on the basis of reason and logic, intelligence and wisdom, and not because you are a very sympathetic person, not because you are an angry person, not because you are a law and order person, or not because you are, and if you will excuse the expression, a bleeding heart. None of these factors have any right in the determination of the issues in this or any other case. (Emphasis added) It is in the above context that the alleged misstatement of the evidence took place. We note initially that the presiding Justice does not purport to quote the evidence. His allusion to the facts of the case in this instance does not rise to a misquotation of evidence. Even though no witness testified in the very terms used by the trial Justice, nevertheless, the undisputed evidence was to the effect that Mr. Gilbert had sustained on his head a cut which required one or more stitches to close, from which he bled profusely. It is clear to us that the jury could not have given the reference remark any meaning different from what Mr. Gilbert had testified to in regard to his injury. We hold that in the use of this highly picturesque language the presiding Justice did not misquote the evidence, nor did he mislead the jury in respect to any issue in the case. If the Justice's descriptive verbiage was considered by the defendant's counsel too pungent for accuracy, it was his duty to call it to the attention of the Court for ready correction prior to jury deliberations. It is not good legal policy, nor is it justice to the parties litigant, whether the State or the defendant, to permit one to sit by and hazard the chance of a verdict, all the time reserving an easily correctible possible error to be the basis of a later appeal in case of an untoward result with the jury. The defendant's claim that the Justice's reference to Mr. Gilbert's head being split open was tantamount to expressing an opinion to the jury contrary to the statutory prohibition of 14 M.R.S.A., § 1105 is not well taken. Even if the defendant's attack on the Justice's charge had disclosed error on either or both points of appeal, our review of the instructions in their entirety under the manifest error-serious injustice standard would not warrant a reversal of the defendant's conviction, since such error would not have been of such compelling magnitude as to warrant the conclusion that defendant's trial was fundamentally unfair. State v. Barker, Me., 387 A.2d 14 (1978). Furthermore, the prosecutor's case would not have been significantly less persuasive to the mind of the average juror, had the instructions been given to the satisfaction of the defendant's counsel, and we see no reasonable possibility that the court's instructions, even if couched in unquestionable terms, would have resulted in a different verdict. See State v. Deveau, Me., 354 A.2d 389, 392 (1976); State v. McDonough, Me., 350 A.2d 556, 564 (1976); State v. McKeough, Me., 300 A.2d 755, 761 (1973). As we said in State v. Ryder, supra, at page 6: As we read the charge in its entirety, we are impressed with the clarity of its language and the effort of the presiding Justice to posit the issues squarely before the jury in a fashion both fundamentally fair and neutral. We are confident that the jurors, as reasonable persons specially selected for jury service in this case [here, the jury had experience for serving in prior cases], were well aware of their unique and exclusive function in weighing the evidence produced before them and in determining from the evidence, the guilt or innocence of the accused. We find that the jury, so constituted, could not properly infer from the instructions, any such expression of opinion in violation of 14 M.R.S.A., § 1105, as asserted by the defendant. The entry will be Appeal denied. Judgment affirmed. WEATHERBEE, J., sat at oral argument and participated in conference, but died prior to the preparation of the opinion. DELAHANTY, J., did not sit.