State v. Main

• Decision Date: 06 April 1897
• Citation: 69 Conn. 123,37 A. 80
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE v. MAIN.

37 A. 80

69 Conn. 123

STATE

v. MAIN.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

April 6, 1897.

Appeal from superior court, New London county; Milton A. Shumway, Judge.

Amasa M. Main was convicted of a violation of the statute relating to "peach yellows," and appeals. No error.

Donald G. Perkins, for appellant Solomon Lucas, State's Atty.

BALDWIN, J. Upon the trial of this cause, the defendant claimed that the statute (Pub. Acts 1893, c. 216) upon which the prosecution was based was unconstitutional for various reasons, and asked the court to instruct the jury as follows: "The jury are the judges of the law bearing upon the case, as well as the facts; and they are entitled, and it is their duty, to consider the legal questions regarding the constitutionality of the statute in question; and, if they conscientiously believe that the statute is unconstitutional upon any of the grounds claimed, then they should acquit the defendant." The court refused to charge as thus requested, and instructed the jury that the statute (Gen. St. § 1630) made them the judges of the law, but not in such a sense that they were at liberty to disregard it; that, when their judgment was satisfied as to what the law was, that law, as thus ascertained, was binding upon them; that, in the opinion of the court, the statute upon which the prosecution was brought was a constitutional and valid law; but that, under the limitations already stated, they were the judges of the law, as well as of the facts; and it was for them to say, on all the evidence, and under the law as they should find it to be, and as they conscientiously believed it to be, whether the accused was guilty or not guilty. There is nothing in this part of the charge of which the defendant can complain. Constitutional law, in the form which it has taken in the United States, is an American graft on English jurisprudence. Its principles and rules are mainly the work of the present century. They rest upon the fundamental conception of a supreme law, expressed in written form, in accordance with which all private rights must be determined and all public authority administered. The constitution of Connecticut (article 2) has divided the powers of government into three distinct departments, each confided to a separate magistracy. To one of these departments is intrusted (article 5) the judicial power of the state. In all cases where the meaning of a written document is to be collected from the words in which it is expressed, its construction, if called in question in the course of a judicial proceeding, is to be determined by the court This is a proper and necessary exercise of judicial power. It belongs, therefore, to the magistracy to which the exercise of this power has been confided by the constitution, to determine the meaning and effect of the words in vrinch that instrument is expressed.

The defendant contends that as, by Gen. St §1880, it is enacted that "the court shall state its opinion to the jury upon all questions of law arising in the trial of a criminal cause, and submit to their consideration both the law and the facts, without any direction how to find their verdict," the superior court, in the case at bar, were bound to submit to the determination of the jury the meaning and effect of toe constitution, in its bearing upon the validity of the statute under which he was prosecuted. If this contention could be supported, it would follow that the general assembly has power indirectly to transgress the constitutional limitations which the people have imposed upon the exercise of legislative power. It is undisputed that that body cannot enact a law which is in conflict with the constitution. But if it can enact a law that juries, in certain cases, shall decide between the constitution and a statute, where it is claimed by a party to the proceeding that they are in conflict, the legislative magistracy can thus invest the jury with a prerogative which it does not itself possess, and can take that prerogative away from the judicial magistracy, which does possess it, under the tripartite division of the powers of government upon which our constitution rests.

These questions first claimed the serious attention of the court and bar of the United States in connection with the prosecutions growing out of the sedition law of 1798. By that act of congress it was provided that in any prosecution for libel the truth might be given in evidence, and the jury should have "a right to determine the law and the fact under the direction of the court, as in other cases." Notwithstanding this, the circuit courts uniformly held that the jury could not pass upon the constitutionality of the statute. U. S. v. Lyon, Whart. St. Tr. 333, 336, Fed. Cas. No. 8,646; U. S. v. Callender, Whart. St. Tr. 688, 713, 718, Fed. Cas. No. 14,709. In the latter of these cases, Mr. Justice Chase observed in his charge that, by the provision above quoted, "a right is given to the jury to determine what the law is in the case before them, and not to decide whether a statute of the United States produced to them is a law or not, or whether it is void, under an opinion that it is unconstitutional; that is, contrary to the constitution of the United States. I admit that the jury are to compare the statute with the facts proved, and then to decide whether the acts done are prohibited by the law, and whether they amount to the offense described in the indictment. This power the jury necessarily possess, in order to enable them to decide on the guilt or innocence of the person accused. It is one thing to decide what the law is, on the facts proved, and another and a very different thing to determine that the statute produced is no law. To decide what the law is, on the facts, is an admission that the law exists. If there is no law in the case, there can be no comparison between it and the facts; and it is unnecessary to establish facts before it is ascertained that there is a law to punish the commission of them. The existence of the law is a previous inquiry, and the inquiry into facts is altogether unnecessary, if there is no law to which the facts can apply. By this right to decide what the law is in any case arising under the statute, I cannot conceive that a right is given to the petit jury to determine whether the statute (under which they claim this right) is constitutional or not. To determine the validity of the statute, the constitution of the United States must necessarily be resorted to and considered, and its provisions inquired into. It must be determined whether the statute alleged to be void, because contrary to the constitution, is prohibited by it expressly or by necessary implication. Was it ever intended by the trainers of the constitution or by the people of America that it should ever be submitted to the examination of a jury to decide what restrictions are expressly or impliedly imposed by it on the national legislature? I cannot possibly believe that congress intended by the statute to grant a right to a petit jury to declare a statute void. * * * I have uniformly delivered the opinion 'that the petit jury have a right to decide the law as well as the fact, in criminal cases,' but it never entered into my mind that they therefore had a right to determine the constitutionality of any statute of the United States." Callender's Case was tried in 1800. and the grounds upon which the charge was based, so far as concerns the point now under consideration, have since been repeatedly approved by American courts of last resort. Com. v. Anthes, 5 Gray, 185, 191, 192; Pierce v. State, 13 N. H. 536, 553, 561; Franklin v. State, 12 Md. 236, 245, 246; Sparf v. U. S., 156 U. S. 51, 71, 15 Sup. Ct. 273.

Gen. St. § 1630, which first appears in the Revision of 1821, was not intended to narrow the functions of the court, but rather to enlarge them. State v. Fetterer, 65 Conn. 287, 291, 32 Atl. 394. Trial by jury in criminal cases had, for more than a century before the adoption of our constitution, become something very different in Connecticut from what it was under the common law. The judges, after the first generation of colonists (among whom were some who had been trained for the English bar) had passed away, had seldom received any special legal education. They did not assume to express any opinion of their own to the jury on points of law, contenting themselves with simply recapitulating in the charge the points made by counsel. 2 Swift's System, 258, 401. If a verdict of guilty were returned in the county court, the prisoner had, by a statute passed in 1705, an absolute right of "review"; that is, to a new trial. Comp. St. 1715, p. 131. As soon as the judicial establishment of the state was reorganized, in 1806, by placing only trained lawyers upon the bench, the judges began the restoration of trial by jury to something like its form at common law. General Rules of Practice, 3 Day, 28. The general assembly took action in the same direction in 1812 (Sess. Laws 1812, c. 15, p. 106); and in 1818 the framers of the constitution completed the work (article 1, § 21).

Trial by jury had lost, under our colonial government, its native strength and dignity. Legislation and judicial practice had done something towards their restoration. The constitution, in providing that the right of trial by jury should remain inviolate, was designed to perpetuate its essential characteristics, as they existed at common law; preserving its substance, while leaving its form to be regulated from time to time as the legislative power might deem the public interests to require. Guile v. Brown, 38 Conn. 237, 243; State v. Worden, 46 Conn. 349, 365. The effect of the statutory provisions in the Revision of 1821, by which it was sought to give proper effect to the declaration of rights in this particular, was probably not fully apprehended by those who penned them. Chief Justice Swift, who was one of the revisers, states in...