Court Opinion

ID: 9863805
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 05:54:20.864677+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:04:19.812618
License: Public Domain

SHENK, J.
I dissent. The administration of justice should not be defeated by a too rigid adherence to • a close and technical analysis of the instructions to the jury. This practice was overly indulged prior to 1911 when the people of this state took the reviewing courts in hand and prescribed the mandate that no misdirection of the jury should cause a reversal unless the error complained of resulted in a miscarriage of justice. (Const., art. VI, § 4%, adopted October 10, 1911.) This case is one, in my opinion, where the Constitution should be observed and the judgment be affirmed. Whether the attempted remaking of the law of the state from its early beginnings on the question of premeditation and deliberation has resulted in clarification is doubtful. I hesitate to conclude that this court in its long history of dealing with felonious homicides has been so oblivious of the defendant’s rights as to have sent men to their doom under what is now said to be. a prejudicial misapplication of the law. The long line of jurists preceding us are now said to have been unable to state the correct rule of law. Instructions, approved by this court for generations, have become the fixed law of the state. Any change in the line of clarification, if any be necessary, should be left to the Legislature.
Edmonds, J,, concurred.