Court Opinion

ID: 9824653
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 11:04:35.351623+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:39:56.414598
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing.
In the case of Ashford v. McKee, 183 Ala. 620, 62 So. 879, the court approves the following quotation from 11 Encyc. PI. & Pr. p. 304:
“The trial judge is vested with large discretion in the conduct of judicial proceedings, and he may properly admonish the jury as to the desirability and -importance' of agreeing on a verdict, and may urge them to make every effort to do so consistent with their consciences. He may advise jurors to lay aside mere pride of judgment, and not to adhere to an opinion regardless of what the other jurors may say, merely through stubbornness, to examine any existing difference in a spirit of fairness and candor, and to reason together and talk over such differences and harmonize them, if possible. So, also, the court may urge as reasons for agreeing on a verdict the time and expense which a new trial would entail. But it is not proper to give an instruction censuring jurors for not agreeing with the majority.”
There was no semblance of coercion in the instruction given in the instant case. The court did not intimate that the jurors should or ought to be guided or controlled by the majority. Moreover, it does not appear in the record that any injury resulted to the defendant from the instruction.
We adhere to our former opinion.
The application for rehearing is overruled.