Court Opinion

ID: 8039318
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-09-09 03:24:38.757659+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:37:15.853435
License: Public Domain

Yeager, J.,
-concurring.
I have joined with the majority in the opinion adopted in this case because I think it goes far enough for the purpose, on the record, of determining the issues presented by the appeal. However as to the instruction which is brought into question I am persuaded that its giving in any civil or criminal case is prejudicial error and that it would have been well to so state in the opinion. I cannot conceive of a case wherein it could be said that' it could not be calculated to be misleading and confusing to a jury.
If by its terms it may be said that the instruction is confusing, conflicting, and calculated to mislead, I fail to see how this court can say that it did not so confuse and mislead.
This court has never departed from the proposition that to give, on material matters, contradictory or conflicting instructions is prejudicial error. It cannot be any the less error if the contradiction or conflict appears in a single instruction. I think it a fair statement that where it is clear that an instruction could have misled a jury such instruction must be deemed prejudicial. This proposition is axiomatic.
The portion of the instruction complained of in this case is the following: “Yet you have no right to reject the testimony of any of the witnesses without good rea*298son, and should not do so, unless you find it irreconcilable with the other testimony which you find to be true.” This is a sentence of an instruction which earlier therein correctly informed the jury that they were the sole judges of the credibility of the witnesses and of the weight to be given their testimony.
Can this sentence be anything less than a restriction upon and an inhibition against the right of a jury to test the credibility of each witness on his own merits? Does it not effectually inform the jury that they must accept the testimony of each and every witness as true in the absence of other testimony found to be both irreconcilable and true?
It was held in Wilson v. State, 150 Neb. 436, 34 N. W. 2d 880, and I think correctly, that notwithstanding the earlier directions, explanations, and admonitions of the instruction, this portion of the instruction failed to leave the jury free to reject testimony as false or incredible even though they may have disbelieved it or had a reasonable doubt as to its falsity or credibility. I am of this opinion notwithstanding a contrary holding of this court in dealing with this particular instruction in this same connection in Moore v. Pacific Mutual Life Ins. Co., 128 Neb. 605, 259 N. W. 916. A question propounded in the opinion therein is as follows: “Besides, how could they decide that any witness had testified falsely except by comparison of his testimony with other facts testified to or by the implication of other testimony?” It imports its own answer but the imported answer is insufficient. It fails to embrace, for instance, the discredit which may appear from the very nature of the testimony under a given set of circumstances or which may result upon cross-examination.
■ In a criminal case conviction may be had only on evidence and the proof must be beyond a reasonable doubt. This instruction, in a criminal case where the State has adduced evidence on an element or elements necessary to be proved and the defendant adduces none, requires *299that the jury shall accept the evidence of the State as true. It does not under such circumstances permit of rejection of all or any part of such evidence no matter how fantastic or incredible it may appear on its face' and no matter that it may have been completely discredited by cross-examination.
A defendant in a criminal case is not required to prove his innocence. He is not required to disprove his guilt or any of the elements of the charge against him. If the charge or any of its elements lacks proof by evidence beyond a reasonable doubt, he may not properly be found guilty.
In application of the inhibition of this instruction to the following hypothesis let us see what the end result would be. A witness for the State has testified with regard to an element of a criminal charge and nothing appears from the witness or his testimony to suggest incredibility. The defendant or a witness' then gives directly opposite testimony which testimony has the appearance of incredibility yet it has enough of quality and substance to cause the jury, not to accept it as true, but to have a reasonable doubt as to its truth or falsity. Cert tainly the defendant is entitled to the benefit of that doubt, but the jury are told by this instruction that in such circumstances they may not reject the testimony of the witness for the State unless they find that the testimony of the defendant or his witness is true.
In a case where witnesses testify on opposite sides-of a case and to opposite effect and it is readily apparent to the jury that the testimony of each is fully and equally incredible the inhibition of the instruction is that neither may be rejected for the explicit reason that the opposite is not found to be true.
If it be suggested that prejudicial error does not exist in a case where the testimony which under the instruction must be accepted as true is testimony of the. defendant or his witnesses, a sufficient answer is that -any instruction with regard to the manner of weighing testi*300mony and credibility of witnesses applies to witnesses for the State as well as to a defendant and his witnesses. The State has as much right to expect that a jury in a criminal case will be instructed correctly and properly as the defendant. It may not well be said and it does not follow that error against the State may not be regarded as prejudicial because from an adverse verdict it may not on appeal obtain a reversal of the judgment on such verdict.
Messmore and Boslatjgh, JJ., concurring.