Acquittal

“ It is to be observed that the force of the argument for acquittal does not stand upon defendant's plea, nor upon its acceptance by the state's attorney, nor the consent of the court; but it stands upon the judgment and sentence of the court by which he is convicted of murder in the second degree, and sentence pronounced according to the law of that guilt, which was by operation of the same law an acquittal of the other and higher crime of murder charged in the same indictment. ”

“ As long as there exists the right of appeal there is a chance of acquittal. Otherwise the right of appeal would be a sham and an insult more intolerable, even, than, to the man convicted of murder, the right to say why he should not receive the sentence which nothing he may say will avert. So long as acquittal may ensue guilt is not established. Why, then, are men sentenced before they are proved guilty? ”

“ I might with equal propriety say there is not a man in this court-house who expects a verdict of guilty. With equal propriety I might say, and will say, that there is not a man on this jury who expects there will be a verdict of guilty. But what has that to do with us?
Try this case according to the evidence; and if you know that every man, woman, and child in the United States want an acquittal, and you are satisfied of the guilt of the defendants, it is your duty to find them guilty. ”

“ If an acquittal should follow the proceedings in which we have this day been engaged, I hope it will be acknowledged that I have only done my duty to the public, in putting these prisoners on their trial; and should they be convicted, they will be ably defended, if they have any defence; and the country must be satisfied that the conviction will be just, when the defence is in the hands of counsel so eminent, and so universally and deservedly respected. ”

“ In England an acquittal upon an indictment so defective that if it had been objected to at the trial, or by motion in arrest of judgment, or by writ of error, it would not have supported any conviction or sentence, has generally been considered as insufficient to support a plea of former acquittal. ”

“ The first jury's verdict of acquittal is merely an illusion of justice if its legal significance is not a determination that there was at least a reasonable doubt whether petitioner was present at the scene of the robbery. ”

“ The jury know that acquittal is not pardon, and that acquittal does not deliver the prisoner from the day of judgment in the other world, from the judgment of his conscience, from the judgment of public opinion; they decide the question only so far as it is a judicial question, and leave A——t to decide whether it is good to kill children or bad. (3) The prisoner comes to the court already exhausted by prison and examination, and he is in an agonizing position at his trial, so that even if he is acquitted he does not leave the court unpunished. ”

“ If one single fact is proved by a preponderance of the evidence which is inconsistent with the guilt of a defendant, this is sufficient to raise a reasonable doubt as to his guilt and entitles him to an acquittal. ”

“ Juries take the little stock in irresistible impulses and emotional or temporary insanity save as a cloak to cover an unrighteous acquittal.
In no other class of cases does "luck" play so large a part in the final disposition of the prisoner. A jury is quite as likely to send an insane man to the electric chair as to acquit a defendant who is fully responsible for his crime. ”

“ To expect an acquittal, in a case involved in so much mystery, it is not too much to say, that the uncommon circumstances attending it should have been explained and accounted for in the most satisfactory manner. ”

“ It is universally conceded that a verdict of acquittal, although rendered against the instructions of the judge, is final, and cannot be set aside; and, consequently, that the jury have the legal power to decide for themselves the law involved in the general issue of guilty or not guilty. ”

“ Furnival might feel himself sufficient to secure the acquittal of an innocent person, or even of a guilty person, under ordinary circumstances; but if any man in England could secure the acquittal of a guilty person under extraordinary circumstances, it would be Mr. Chaffanbrass. ”

“ If the question had been one of former acquittal,-a much strouger case than this,-the court would have had jurisdiction to decide upon the record whether there had been a former acquittal for the same offense; and, if the identity of the offense were in dispute, it might be necessary on such a plea to submit that question to the jury on the issue raised by the plea. The same principle would apply to a plea of a former conviction. Clearly, in these cases the court not only has jurisdiction to try and decide the question raised, but it is its imperative duty to do so. ”

“ But where a conviction for a less crime cannot be had under an indictment for a greater which includes it, there it is plain that while an acquittal would not or might not be a bar, a conviction of the greater crime would involve the lesser also, and would be a bar ”

“ By eloquence, readiness of wit, and adroit flattery of the jury he contrived to secure his acquittal in the face of the open hostility of the judge—a unique achievement at a time when the condemnation of prisoners whom the authorities wished to convict was a mere matter of course. ”

“ Rule 29 allows a judge to reserve his decision on a motion for judgment of acquittal until after the jury has returned a verdict. If he then grants the motion, the defendant stands acquitted, but again only because the evidence has been found insufficient to support the charge. Where the grounds for granting an 'acquittal' are based on an independent legal decision about the interpretation or construction of the statute, the judge's action will be an 'arrest of judgment' even though he labels it an 'acquittal.' United States v. ”

“ But a person accused of crime has a twofold protection-in the court and the jury-against being unlawfully convicted. If the evidence appears to the court to be insufficient in law to warrant a conviction, the court may direct an acquittal. ”

“ And hence it is allowed as a consequence, that when a man is once fairly found not guilty upon any indictment, or other prosecution, before any court having competent jurisdiction of the offence, he may plead such acquittal in bar of any subsequent accusation for the same crime.' 4 Bl.Comm. ”

“ I think of the prosecution’s case. They will convict me, of course. I reconsider it from my point of view. No, they cannot! No jury in the world could convict on such theories. But on what will they base an acquittal? There was no defence. I remember the surprises 218the district attorney’s office has sprung upon me—the unanswered witnesses, the fervent experts swearing to the impassioned hypothetical questions of the prosecutor, and his closing address, scathing, unjust. There is no chance for me—the odds are thousands to one against acquittal. ”

“ Had the counsel been allowed to follow up his advantage by an address to the jury, he would, I doubt not, spite of their prejudices against the prisoners, have obtained an acquittal; but as it was, after a neutral sort of charge from the judge, by no means the ablest that then adorned the bench, the jurors, having deliberated for something more than half an hour, returned into court with a verdict of "guilty" against both prisoners, accompanying it, however, with a strong recommendation to mercy!
"Mercy!" said the judge. "What for? On what ground?" ”

“ Upon principle, on one indictment, and against one defendant, there can be but one judgment and sentence, and that at one time, and for the offense or offenses of which he has been convicted; and a sentence, upon the counts on which he has been convicted by the jury definitely and conclusively disposes of the whole indictment, operates as an acquittal upon, or a discontinuance of, any count on which the jury have failed to agree, and makes any further proceedings against him on that count impossible. ”

“ That the evidence is sufficient in law I am reluctantly compelled to decide. Whether the court which deals with points of this description will confirm my judgment or overrule it I cannot say. In the meantime, you must take it from me that you are legally justified in convicting the prisoner. [Pg 163] Whether you are really justified on the facts is, of course, a very different question.’
Impression among many that judge is going for acquittal. Jury still in doubt.
‘This is one of those cases which make a judge congratulate himself on the existence of trial by jury. ”

“ If the question of law be adjudged in favour of the accused, it is attended with the same results as an acquittal in fact, except that he may be indicted afresh for the same offence; but if the question be determined against the prisoner, the law, in its tenderness, will not allow him, at least in cases of felony, to be punished for his misapprehension of the law, or for his mistake in the conduct of his pleadings, but will, in such case, permit him to plead over to the indictment—that is, to plead not guilty; the consequences of which plea we will consider hereafter. ”

“ But before you leave, let me make a few remarks on this case, which in my judgment are called for by the circumstances, and which may appear again, in consequence of many parties being similarly situated. Although the jury has acquitted you, such acquittal must not be considered a license for others to go and do likewise. Where your case is one of necessity, another of a like nature may be caused through dishonesty. Your act is not applauded by thinking minds, nor did the jury intend to convey the impression that in acquitting you they considered you had performed a very meritorious act. ”

“ And here it may be proper to remark, that in any case, if there be any fair pretence of property or right in the prisoner, or if it be brought into doubt at all, the court will direct an acquittal; for it is not fit that such disputes should be settled in a manner to bring men's lives into jeopardy. ”

“ Thousands hear of the charge who never know of the acquittal,—thousands recollect the man as the inmate of a prison, who have no remembrance of the full cause of his release. The adverse statement of the press, as it regards the act, or the adverse testimony on the trial, lives in the minds of many who do not know, or scarcely would care, about all that was said in behalf of the accused to induce a complete acquittal. ”

“ I did prepare with my own hands all the food and drink of which they partook—”
“Prisoner, prisoner,” said Squire Upton, in a tone of great sympathy, for—despite the conclusive evidence against her, it was impossible to look into her innocent eyes without feeling a doubt of her supposed guilt, and wishing to give her the benefit of that doubt—“prisoner, I must again earnestly warn you that you are fatally criminating yourself, a thing that the law does not require you to do. Justice affords even to the most guilty the opportunity of acquittal, which the criminal is not bound to destroy.” ”

“ It is familiar learning that there are many cases in which a conviction or an acquittal of a greater crime is a bar to a subsequent prosecution for a lesser one. In Mr. Wharton's Treatise on Criminal Law, (volume 1, § 560,) the rule is stated as follows, to-wit: 'An acquittal or conviction for a greater offense is a bar to a subsequent indictment for a minor offense included in the former, wherever, under the indictment for the greater offense, the defendant could have been convicted of the less;' and he instances several cases in which the rule applies ”

“ Defendant requests your Honor to charge that the jury must be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt, from the evidence of the case, of the sanity of the defendant [Pg 145] at the time of the commission of the act charged in the indictment, and if the people fail to establish the sanity of the defendant at the time of the commission of the act charged in the indictment, this defendant cannot be convicted of any crime and is entitled to an acquittal. ”

“ One accused in different counts of an indictment of the same crime, there being no difference in the means alleged to have been employed, may not be adjudged guilty on a verdict of conviction on one count and of acquittal on the other. ”

“ The court then excused the jury and after excoriating the Assistant called the jury back into session and directed the verdict of acquittal.
It is fundamental in our criminal jurisprudence that the public has a right to have a person who stands legally indirected by a grand jury publicly tried on the charge. No judge has the power before hearing the testimony proffered by the Government or at least canvassing the same to enter a judgment of acquittal and thus frustrate the Government in the performance of its duty to prosecute those who violate its law. ”

“ If any person, who is indicted for an offence, shall on his trial be acquitted upon the ground of a variance between the indictment and the proof, or upon any exception to the form or to the substance of the indictment, he may be arraigned again on a new indictment, and may be tried and convicted for the same offence, notwithstanding such former acquittal.' Similar statutes have been passed in other states. ”

“ The counsel for the crown, cross-examined the witness, but his efforts only brought out her evidence in, if possible, a still clearer and more trustworthy light. Not a thought of doubt was entertained by any person in the court, and the jury, with the alacrity of men relieved of a grievous burthen, and without troubling the judge to resume his interrupted charge, returned a verdict of acquittal. ”