A Treatise On The Law Of Instructions To Juries In Civil And Criminal Cases PDF Download

Excerpt from A Treatise on the Law of Instructions to Juries in Civil and Criminal Cases, Vol. 1: With Forms of Instructions Approved by the Courts Out of the dim and distant past in juridical history there has come, and now abides with us, the Jury System, impregnably in trenched in constitutional guaranty. In civil actions, and in crim inal prosecutions, one of the greatest elements of the contest is involved in the inquiry, What are the Facts? The Wisdom of mankind has reached the definite and decisive conclusion that the determination of questions of fact rests, not with the jurist, but with a body of laymen, possessing no intimate knowledge of the' law, but endowed with the faculties and experience of the common and average man. This body, known as the common-law Jury, is intrusted with the task of sifting the truth from circumstances, the frailties of human memory, the passions and evil designs of factions, and the defects of understanding. This task is made the Function of the jury, _ and the law, in positive and certain terms, declares that that function shall not be invaded by the trial judge. But the Law of the Case is to be pronounced by the judge in Instructions, couched in plain and unambiguous terms. In these instructions the judge is required rigidly to refrain from expressing his own views as to the facts, from intimating to the jury the weight to be given to particular testimony, and from as suming the existence of facts not clearly admitted by both parties to the litigation. To accomplish this result the judge is required to resort to a most adroit and painstaking literary effort, and to. Produce a Charge which will withstand the assaults of counsel for the unsuccessful party in the appellate court. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.