Melville Fuller

“ It is obvious that under any system of jury trials the influence of the trial judge on the jury is necessarily and properly of great weight, and that his lightest word or intimation is received with deference, and may prove controlling. ”

“ When, from the nature of the attack, there is reasonable ground to believe that there is a design to destroy his life, or commit any felony upon his person, the killing of the assailant will be excusable homicide, although it should afterwards appear that no felony was intended.' Self. ”

“ Provided he use all the means in his power, otherwise, to save his own life, or prevent the intended harm, such as retreating as far as he can, or disabling his adversary without killing him, if it be in his power. Now, that is the first proposition of the law of self-defense. Now, let us see again, by enumerating each condition that must enter into it, what they are: First, we must be in the right. We must be doing what we had a right to do at the time of the killing, and when we are so situated we are attacked by another. ”

“ If we create that condition by doing a wrongful thing upon our part, which would naturally or reasonably or probably produce a deadly result, the law says there is no self-defense for us, because we are in the wrong in the first place. ”

“ Provided the defendant did not by his threatening and violent conduct prevent the officer from making his character and mission known. This is given in connection with the principle I have given you, that if a man stands up and obstructs arrest, prevents arrest, armed with deadly weapons, and using them in a way that is threatening, then the officer has no time, nor is he called upon to make proclamation. ”

“ We presume that the learned judge intended to express the view that the existence of a state of facts which might render the homicide excusable was subject to the qualification that wrongful action on defendant's part towards Wilson did not occasion the attack. But we are of opinion that the language just quoted was open to a different construction, and tended fatally to mislead. Whether the right of self-defense is legitimately exercised depends upon the circumstances of the particular transaction ”

“ But, if such were the fact, he could not be considered as doing exactly what he had a right to do, or as having an especially pure heart and clean hands. In a subsequent part of the charge the learned judge said, referring to the defendant: 'He was a fugitive from justice, if he had jumped the bond he had in this court, as they say. If he had forfeited his bond, and was up in that country, hiding out from his usual place of abode, to avoid arrest, he was then a fugitive from justice; and you have a right to take that condition into consideration. ”

“ Cabell, Willes, 411, it was held that a warrant need not be under seal, unless required by statute, and Willes, C. J., said: 'A warrant does not, ex vi termini, apply to an instrument under seal. It signifies no more than an authority. All the books in which it said that a warrant must be under seal are founded on a case in the Year Books (14 Hen. VIII. p. 16, a) , where it is said that a justice of the peace is a judge of record, and hath a seal of office, and that the inferior officer, when he sees the seal, must give credit thereto.' In Aylesbury v. ”

“ And especially does that principle apply to a case when we are doing an act which, from its nature, and the way we are doing it, death would be naturally produced in the conflict that may ensue, because of the act that we do. ”