People v. Ybarra

California Supreme Court Jul 1, 1860Published

Before: Baldwin

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Holding. The court held that a trial judge's instruction to the jury that they must find the defendant guilty if they believed the deceased's dying declarations violated the state constitutional prohibition against judges charging juries with respect to matters of fact.

Issues

Whether the trial court's instruction to the jury regarding the weight of dying declarations constituted an improper charge on matters of fact.
Whether the trial court erred in admitting the deceased's dying declarations.
Whether the indictment was fatally defective for lack of technical precision.

Disposition. reversed and remanded

Quotations verified verbatim against the opinion

“This provision is violated whenever a Judge so instructs as to force the jury to a particular conclusion upon the whole or any part of the case”

“The Judge has no more right to control the opinion of the jury upon a matter of fact, than the jury have to disregard the directions of the Judge upon a matter of law.”

Synopsis

Upon trial for murder, the dying declarations of the deceased were admitted in evidence, under proof that she, at the time of making them, was lying down, suffering very much from the effects of a mortal gunshot wound in the abdomen; that she died about four o’clock, p. m., of the next day after she was shot. One witness testified that before noon of that day, deceased answered “she believed she was going to die, and called on God to bless her.” Another witness testified—“ An hour before she died they were at prayer. I had conversation with her three or four hours before. She was in great misery all the time—never was easy, and was continually failing. She told me that Pedro,” etc., then follows the statement: Held, that her dying declarations were properly admitted.

Where, upon such trial, the dying declarations of the deceased were admitted, and the Court instructed the jury that if these declarations were true they should find defendant guilty; and the witness who testified upon the subject stated that the deceased told him, “ that Pedro, the man with whom she had been living, had shot her,” and he identified defendant as the man with whom she had been living; and the evidence connecting the defendant with the commission of the offense was principally circumstantial, and the only direct and positive testimony to that effect was the testimony of this witness : Held, that the instruction was improper, because within Art. VI, sec. 17 of the Constitution, which declares that “Judges shall not charge juries with respect to matters of fact, but may state the testimony and declare the law.”

This provision is violated whenever a Judge so instructs as to force the jury to a particular conclusion upon the whole or any part of the case, or to take away their exclusive right to weigh the evidence and determine the facts. The meaning of the provision is, that the Judge shall decide upon the law and the jury upon the facts, and that the former shall not invade the province nor usurp the powers of the latter.

An error of the Judge in violating this provision of the Constitution would not, under all circumstances, be sufficient cause for reversal. Prima facie it would be sufficient; but no more importance is to be attached to an error of this nature than any other. If no injury could possibly have resulted from it, it cannot vitiate the judgment.

Abstract and immaterial error is insufficient to reverse a judgment; but when error is shown, the burden of showing its immateriality rests upon the party in whose favor it was committed.

Where an instruction given could under no circumstances be correct, the legal presumption is that the error was to the prejudice of the party against whom the error was committed.

In a criminal case it would require the most conclusive showing that the error did not prejudice the party, to induce this Court to disregard it.

At the January term, 1860, Baldwin, J. delivered the opinion of the Court Field, C. J. concurring.

Indictment for murder. The defendant was indicted in Calaveras county for murder, and convicted of the first degree of that crime. Upon the trial, the declarations of the deceased, a Mexican woman named Juana, were admitted. The deceased, at the time of making these declarations, was lying down, suffering very much from the effects of a mortal gunshot wound, received in the abdomen. She died about four o’clock, p. m. of the next day after [168]she was shot. One witness testified that before noon of that day, Juana answered “ she believed she was going to die, and called on God to bless her.” Thorn, another witness, testified: “ An hour before she died, they were at prayer. I had conversation with her three or four hours before. She was in great misery all the time, never was easy, and was continually failing. She told me that Pedro,” etc.; then follows the statement. The wound was unquestionably mortal. The rule as to the admission of dying declarations is thus stated by Mr. Greenleaf: (1 Greenl. Ev. sec. 160) “ The circumstances under which the declarations were made are to be shown to the Judge; it being his province, and not that of the jury, to determine whether they are admissible. In Woodcock’s case, the whole subject seems to have been left to the jury, under direction of the Court, as a mixed question of law and fact; but subsequently it has always been held a question exclusively for the consideration of the Court, being placed on the same ground with the preliminary proof of documents, and of the competency of witnesses, which is always addressed to the Court. But after the evidence is admitted, its credibility is entirely within the province of the jury, who of course are at liberty to weigh all the circumstances under which the declarations were made, including those already proved to the Judge, and to give the testimony only such credit as, upon the whole, they may think it deserves.”

The same author (sec. 158) says: “ It is essential to the admissibility of these declarations, and is a preliminary fact, to be proved by the party offering them in evidence, that they were made under a sense of impending death, but it is not necessary that they should be stated at the time to be so made. It is enough if it satisfactorily appears in any mode, that they were made under that sanction ; whether it be directly proved by the express language of the declarant, or be inferred from his evident danger, or the opinions of the medical or other attendants, stated to' him, or from his conduct, or other circumstances of the case, all of which are resorted to in order to ascertain the state of the declarant’s mind. The length of time which elapsed between the declaration and the death of the declarant, furnishes no rule for the admission or rejection of the evidence, though in the absence of better testimony, it may

People v. Ybarra

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