Court Opinion

ID: 9699157
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 20:11:52.959907+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:47.030554
License: Public Domain

Condon, C. J.,
dissenting. The primary in question was conducted by the Republican party subject to the supervision of and with voting machines supplied by the state board of elections. The election law provided that a primary may be held only by a political party which polled not less than 5 per cent of the total vote for governor at the election next preceding the primary. G. L. 1956, §17-12-1. The records of the board contain the official statistics of such election. They incontrovertibly show whether the Republican party polled the required number of votes to entitle it to hold the primary here in question. It must be assumed that the board would not have authorized the primary and supplied the voting machines unless its records showed that the Republican party was so entitled.
There is a presumption that sworn officers perform their duty according to law. Greenough ex rel. Carroll v. Board of Canvassers and Registration, 33 R. I. 559; Pendleton v. Briggs, 37 R. I. 352. In the absence of evidence tending to rebut such presumption it was not necessary to present evidence that the primary was lawful. Nugent ex rel. Cote v. Mullen, 92 R. I. 69, 166 A.2d 409. This is a presumption of law to which the state was entitled. Such presumptions are constitutional in criminal as well as civil cases. State v. Sheehan, 28 R. I. 160; Yee Hem v. United States, 268 U. S. 178. So long as the presumption is rebuttable the defendant suffers no harm. The presumption does not im*349pose on him the 'burden of proof but merely shifts the burden of going forward with evidence to overcome the presumption. Thereafter the burden of proof remains with the state and the presumption ceases. In the absence of such rebutting evidence the trial justice rightly assumed the legality of the primary and therefore did not err in denying defendants’ motion for a directed verdict in so far as it was grounded on the state’s failure to present formal evidence of such legality. For this reason I am constrained to dissent.
It seems to me that there is still another compelling reason for sustaining the trial justice’s position in this matter. Facts of common knowledge need not be formally proved since all men are presumed to know them. Such knowledge may and should be used by both judge and jury. In this connection it has been well said that “ 'Courts will not pretend to be more ignorant than the rest of mankind.’ ” Fisher v. Jansen, 30 Ill. App. 91, 92. What any particular judge or jury may know is not the test. Neither may ever have heard of the fact which is claimed to be commonly known yet each may be required to assume that it is true without formal evidence. Commonwealth v. Peckham, 2 Gray (Mass.) 514; Commonwealth v. Pear, 183 Mass. 242; King v. Gallun, 109 U. S. 99. The only problem is whether the fact in question is properly one of common knowledge.
In the case at bar the question whether the Republican party is a legal party entitled to hold a primary is one involving the political history of the state and the official election statistics. It has been generally held that the courts will recognize as matters of common knowledge the recent political history of the state and of the great national parties as well as the results of elections in which they were involved. State ex rel. Buttz v. Lindahl, 11 N. D. 320; Brooke v. Filer, 35 Ind. 402; State ex rel. Howells v. Metcalf, 67 L.R.A. 331; In re Denny, 156 Ind. 104; State ex rel. *350Marr v. Stearns, 72 Minn. 200; Prince v. Crocker, 166 Mass. 347; State ex rel. Harvey v. Wright, 251 Mo. 325.
It is certainly a matter of common knowledge that the Republican party is one of the two great political parties and that in this state it has consistently polled in recent elections, and especially the one next preceding the primary here in question, more than 5 per cent of the total vote for governor. For the court or jury to refuse to recognize such facts would be to confess ignorance of what everyone else knows. The trial justice correctly assumed that they were matters of common knowledge and took judicial notice of them. What he did, the jury were also' entitled tO' do and hence he did not err in denying defendants’ motion for a directed verdict.
For these defendants to' escape the jury’s verdict solely on the ground relied upon by the court will be, in my opinion, regrettable from the viewpoint of public justice. While I join in the court’s laudable desire to see that defendants are accorded the full measure of their undoubted right to a full, fair and impartial trial I cannot subscribe to the view that such right has in any degree been denied in this instance. It is true that the chief glory of the common law is its extreme solicitude for the enforcement of all the rights of the accused in a criminal trial, but it is equally true that such solicitude must be reasonable and recognize the realities of life. In my opinion the court’s decision falls short of such recognition, hence for this reason also I dissent.
On Motion for Reargument.
MAY 25, 1962.
Per Curiam.
After our opinion in the above case was filed the state was granted permission to present a motion for reargument. Pursuant thereto such a motion has been filed setting out therein the particular reasons on which it *351bases its contention that justice requires a reargument of the case.
J. Joseph Nugent, Attorney General, Coñnne P. Grande, Special Counsel, for State.
Ralph Rotondo, Michael Addeo, for defendants.
The majority of the court, having given full consideration to the reasons urged in support of the motion, is of the opinion that no reason has been shown for the granting of the motion for reargument.
Motion denied.