Court Opinion

ID: 9808843
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 20:52:21.126689+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:19:23.659549
License: Public Domain

ByittjM, J.,
(dissenting!) In my opinion the prisoners have-not been convicted according to law, but a startling and dangerous invasion has been made of the right of trial by jury, of the freedom and discretion of counsel, and of the constitutional *247rights of the accused to a full and fair defence. Art. 1, see. 11 of the Constitution declares, that “ in all criminal prosecutions, every man has the right to be informed of the accusation against him, and to confront the accusers and witnesses with other testimony, and to have counsel for his defence,” and this is again enjoined in a statute, Battle’s Revisal, chap. 33, sec. 59, “ every person accused of any crime, whatsoever, shall be entitled to counsel, in all matters which may be necessary for his defence.”
If the counsel are not herein constituted the Judges of what may bo necessary both to speak and do in the defence, then we are to reverse all the rules of interpretation, and forget all our knowledge of the duties and rights of counsel. The law does not confer arbitrary power on the Judge, nor impose tame submission on counsel. Each in his sphere is independent, and neither can encroach upon' the entire freedom and discretion of the other. It is only the abuse that can authorize interference, and when that occurs the counsel has a remedy by appeal, and the Judge by a direct interposition in the cause.
To me, it is an alarming proposition that a Judge who is not responsible for the right conduct of a cause, can without any necessity, cause, or reason, put the counsel of the accused under the ban by crippling his argument by an arbitrary restriction. If on a trial for murder, a prisoner without counsel should rise to address a jury for his life, and the Judge should command him to make his defence in one hour and a half, it would strike the spectators with surprise and indignation, yet it is settled that the counsel of the prisoner, has all the rights of the prisoner, and for the time, is the embodiment of the accused himself. Look at it. Three persons are on trial for their lives, and 'making several defences. Many witnesses are examined and the testimony is conflicting. The evidence is closed, and the argument about to begin. Just then, without any previous warning, the Judge announces to the prisoners’ counsel, “ you shall have only an hour and a half for your ad*248dress to the jury.” And without time or opportunity to rearrange and condense the argument within the limit, even if it were possible, and against the will of counsel, the trial is rushed through, with unprecedented haste, and the prisoners convicted ! “ Next to doing right, the great object in the administration of public justice, should be to give public satisfaction.”
When Sir Walter Raleigh was put on his trial for treason, the Judges attempted to stop him, in his defence, but he had the manhood to assert his rights. “ My Lords,” said he, “ 1 stand for my life.” Posterity has vindicated him and condemned his Judges.
In the times of the Stuarts it was not uncommon to try, convict and execute a dozen persons at a time, and in one day, but a capital trial is not now what it was then. In the eye of the law and Christian civilization, human lite has more significance, the safeguards thrown around it are proportionately increased, and the science of defence more minute, intricate and exhaustive. Trials which formerly would occupy hours only, now require days and often weeks. Who can know what word or thought may strike the mind of a jury and turn the balanced scale in favor of human life, or when that word or thought may be uttered 2 If, therefore, a turn of thought or a suggestion which might legitimately be made, is cut off and excluded from the jury by a causeless limitation of time, and a life is lost in consequence, a fearful accountability rests somewhere.
I do not claim to restrict the legal discretion of the Judge, or any of his functions as a presiding magistrate. I only affirm that he cannot limit the legal discretion of counsel, to conduct his defence as his judgment and conscience may dictate, under the solemn trust imposed on him, not by leave of the Court, but by the authority of the law, equally binding upon Judge and counsel. There is no pretense here, that the counsel was abusing his privilege, for the argument had not begun. If a Judge can ever interfere, as here, it must be to arrest an actual *249abuse, not to anticipate what may never occur, and cramp and fetter the freedom of debate, by arbitrary and embarrassing restrictions.
The question is not whether the Judge can supervise and controi the proceedings of the Court, but whether he can, without cause or provocation at his own will and caprice, interfere with and control others, who are in the regular and legal discharge of the most grave and solemn duty which can be imposed on them. Was time important? No; the trial began on Monday, and Court was adjourned on Wednesday. Are men to be tried for their lives by the hour glass ? Courts of Justice are instituted for no such purpose, and to bend them to it is a perversion, and they become engines of oppression. A slight self-examination will show us that we may impose voluntary restrictions upon ourselves, because we are therein governed by a knowledge of our own powers and capacities to do a given thing in a given time. But when others who have not this knowledge, impose restrictions against our consent, the mind instinctively feels, and is shackled and imprisoned. It is only when free from restraint, like the body, that all its activities can be brought into action, and what more sacred and awful demand can be made for the development of all its varied powers and energies than in defence of human life!
The judicial annals of our State, it is believed, afford no other instance of such an exercise of power. It is without precedent here. On the contrary, it is within the memory of many that an eminent counsel in this State, confessedly spoke against time, to save the life of the accused by the expiration of the term of the Court. State v. Spier, 1 Dev., 491. If there could be an occasion for the interference of the Court, that was one, for the term could not be extended to the end of the trial, as now. Yet the Judge dared not to stop the counsel, and the Legislature sanctioned the conduct of the Judge, for shortly thereafter, and in consequence of this very case, it passed an act, enabling the Judge, m capital cases only, to extend the term from day to da}’, until the trial is finished. Rev. *250Code, cliap. 31, see. 16. Thus we have the legislative construction of the force and extent of that humane provision of the Constitution in favor of life. It cannot be that we are called upon to furnish the authority of precedents to sanction the instincts of our nature in common with the brutes, the right of self-defence, but if so, we have only to open our eyes to the living history around us. From the time of Ebseine, who first fixed the rights of counsel, of juries, and of the accused, upon their proper foundations, the criminal annals of England and America furnish scarcely a precedent, where twice the time allotted here was not required and wisely consumed by counsel in the legitimate defence of the accused.
I am, therefore, of opinion that there was error, and that the prisoners are entitled to a venire de novo.