Court Opinion

ID: 9834101
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 23:17:42.285944+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:44:11.602655
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
In the motion for a rehearing, counsel for appellant quote from affidavits attached to the motion for a new trial, which were not considered by the court belpw or by 'this court in passing upon the facts. They also refer to some decided cases which they say are in conflict with the holding of this court in saying that “it is only when' it reasonably appears from investigation that -the jurors have probably been governed by improper consideration that their verdict should be set aside.”
There can be no inflexible rule adopted by courts in passing upon questions of this character. Each particular case must be governed, by its own facts. We frankly concede that some of the courts have gone further than we are disposed to go in setting aside verdicts because the jury discussed irrelevant facts. It is difficult to reconcile the extravagant laudation which those courts, heap upon the jury system with the critical caution they adopt in excluding every opportunity for error on the part of the jury. If the jury system is so valuable, it is because jurors are capable and trustworthy men. If they are so weak and unreliable as to err whenever they have the opportunity to go wrong, then the jury system deserves little of .the praise which it so often gets from the very courts that overturn verdicts. We feel that a just deference to the jury system warrants the assumption that in their deliberations, the jurors are unbiased and are governed by the facts legally adduced upon the trial and by the charge of the court, till the contrary is made to appear.
The motion for a rehearing is overruled.