Henry Billings Brown

“ It certainly would have been error to have told them to apply to the facts proven any other rules than those which their good common sense dictated, or to set up any other standard of judgment than that which influenced them in the ordinary business of life. ”

“ Business could hardly be carried on without indulging in the presumption that employees, who have certain duties to perform, and are known generally to perform such duties, will actually perform them in connection with a particular case. ”

“ The action of the court was commendable in this particular, and we think this ruling, and the immediate withdrawal of the remark by the district attorney, condoned his error in making it, if his remark could be deemed a prejudicial error. There is no doubt that, in the heat of argument, counsel do occasionally make remarks that are not justified by the testimony, and which are, or may be, prejudicial to the accused. In such cases, however, if the court interfere, and counsel promptly withdraw the remark, the error will generally be deemed to be curred. ”

“ There was no error in these instructions. One of the main objects of a jury trial is to secure to parties the judgment of 12 men of average intelligence, who will bring to bear upon the consideration of the case the sound common sense which is supposed to characterize their ordinary daily transactions. If cases were to be decided alone by the application of technical rules of law and evidence, it could better be done by men who are learned in the law, and who have made it the study of their lives ”

“ The eighth assignment was taken to an alleged error in permitting the witness McAfee to testify that it was the duty of a certain messenger of the post-office inspector, whose office was in the post-office building a St. Louis, Mo., to take the mail from the post office, and distribute it in the private boxes of persons who had desk room in the inspector's office. ”

“ Unless the paper were marked before delivery to the post office at Chicago, it would be impossible to say whether that indentical paper was mailed; but, if large numbers of that edition were mailed every day, it would be practically safe for the jury to assume that the papers identified were among the number. This testimony, taken in connection with that of the two witnesses McAfee and Montgomery, showed with reasonable, if not absolute, certainty that the papers which they received and identified were among those which had been actually mailed. ”

“ The forty-second and forty-third assignments were taken to the following instructions:
'It is your duty to come to a conclusion upon all those facts, and the effect of all those facts, the same as you would conscientiously come to a conclusion upon any other set of facts that would come before you in life.' 'There is no technical rule ”