People v. Ferry

Citations

• 84 Cal. 31
• 24 P. 33
• 1890 Cal. LEXIS 755

Syllabus

<p>Criminal Law—Instructions—Reasonable Doubt—Near Approach to Absolute Conviction — Serious Belief of Guilt. — It is not error to instruct the jury in a criminal case, in connection with the subject of reasonable doubt, that their opinion of the guilt of the defendant must nearly approach absolute conviction, to justify a verdict of guilty; but it is error to instruct the jury that the defendant is entitled to an acquittal, “unless they seriously believe he is guilty,”such qualifying clause being too ambiguous, doubtful, and uncertain in its import to he clearly consistent with the rule that the evidence must satisfy the jury of the guilt of the defendant to a moral certainty, and beyond a reasonable doubt.</p> <p>Id. — Testimony of Persons Accused of Crime — Instructions. — In a criminal case, where the defendant has testified to his own innocence, and another person arrested for the same offense, who has confessed his own guilt, has testified that the defendant took no part in che offense, an instruction stating the former rule, which excluded the testimony of persons accused of crime, and the ground of such exclusion, but that the modern notion is the other way; that they have a right to he heard, and to have proper weight given to their testimony, and no more, hut that they do not stand in the same position as a witness who is entirely disinterested; that the time has not yet come when men who confess themselves guilty of crime are to stand alongside of and made equal to men who have lived upright and honest lives, but that the value of their testimony is to be entirely estimated by the jury, — is not erroneous, though just on the verge of error.</p> <p>Id__Instruction Cited in Assignments of Error—Disagreement with Charge Set out in Bill of Exceptions. — As a general rule, when an instruction cited in the assignments of error differs from the charge as particularly set forth in the bill of exceptions, the charge as set forth in the body of the hill should cont