Daniels v. State

• Decision Date: 16 January 1901
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Delaware
• Parties: JACOB A. DANIELS, plaintiff below, plaintiff in error, v. STATE OF DELAWARE, defendant below, defendant in error

48 A. 196

18 Del. 586

JACOB A. DANIELS, plaintiff below, plaintiff in error, v. STATE OF DELAWARE, defendant below, defendant in error

Supreme Court of Delaware

January 16, 1901

Supreme Court, January Term, 1901.

WRIT OF ERROR to the Court of General Sessions for New Castle County (No. 18, November Term, 1899).

Judgment reversed.

Josiah Marvel and William S. Hilles for plaintiff in error.

Peter L. Cooper, Jr., Deputy Attorney-General, for the State.

NICHOLSON Ch., and PENNEWILL and BOYCE, J. J., sitting.

OPINION

BOYCE, J.

:Jacob A. Daniels, the plaintiff in error, was tried and convicted in the Court below upon the charge of unlawfully and lewdly and lasciviously playing with Viola Yeatman, a female child under the age of sixteen years.

There are seven assignments of error. The second, third and fifth are directed to the refusal of the Court to charge the jury as requested by the second and third prayers, and to the instruction by the Court to the jury instead, respectively. And they were considered together in the argument. They present the main subject of controversy in this case. This being so, it renders a discussion of the remaining errors assigned unnecessary, although we may say that upon a careful consideration of each of them in connection with the evidence produced, and the law applicable to the case, they should not be sustained.

The third error assigned is directed to the third prayer requested, which was properly refused by the Court in that it assumed a fact; i. e., "the defendant being a man of good character"--which, under the evidence in this case, was a question exclusively for the determination of the jury.

It remains, therefore, to consider:

(1) The refusal by the Court to instruct the jury as requested by the second prayer, to wit:

"The jury should take into consideration the evidence of the witnesses as to the good character of the defendant as of any other substantive fact tending to establish the defendant's innocence or guilt, and if after considering it in connection with all the other evidence in the case they have a reasonable doubt of his guilt, they should return a verdict of not guilty."

(2) The instruction which was given by the Court to the jury instead, to wit: "We have also been asked to charge you as to the matter of good reputation. We will say that when good character is proved, and the evidence is doubtful, hanging in the scales as it were, so that you do not know which way to decide it, in such a case good reputation when proved, should enure to the acquittal of the defendant. But when the testimony is positive and distinct and the offense is clearly and satisfactorily proved, good reputation is of little value. Good men sometimes fall, and men who have borne a good reputation, and have never before, perhaps, done a bad act, even these sometimes in the erratic working of human nature commit crimes, so that we say that evidence of good reputation is only available in cases of doubt; even then it must be proved to your satisfaction."

It is the correctness of this instruction as a rule of law that is disputed.

We will first review the reported cases in this State bearing upon the subject. And it may be said that there has not been an unvarying, uniform rule with regard to the weight and value of character evidence in the courts of this State. The doctrine that "proof of good character is available only in doubtful cases" * * * and that "the reputation for good character, however excellent and irreproachable, should not be allowed to weigh against positive, direct and uncontradicted evidence,"--following the evident intent and meaning of the instruction given to the jury in the case of the State vs. Manlove, 1 Houst. Crim. Cas. 208-217, was, for the first time, unequivocally and unmistakably laid down in the case of the State vs. Vines, 1 Houst. Crim. Cas. 424-431. The case of the State vs. Williamson, 1 Houst. Crim. Cas. 155-164, seems to be the first reported case in this State in which the jury were instructed by the Court upon the subject of character evidence. And the instruction given is not so clear in its meaning and effect as the instructions upon the same question contained in the two cases which have just been cited. The language of the Court is as follows:

"If, however, the jury should not be satisfied from the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that such was the case, they should acquit the prisoner, for he would be entitled to the benefit of any reasonable doubt they might have that such were the facts of the case, and should they entertain such doubt, the proof of his good character should determine that doubt and the question of his guilt or innocence of the crime charged against him in his favor." The language employed in the charge would seem to indicate that the evidence of good character was submitted to the jury together with the other evidence without any qualification or disparagement, and that the jury were left untrammeled to determine upon the whole evidence in the case, whether, or not, they entertained "a reasonable doubt." It is true that they were told that "should they entertain such a doubt, the proof of his good character should determine that doubt." Without criticising the instruction or commenting upon its uselessness, because of the familiar rule in criminal law that, "a reasonable doubt" enures to the acquittal of the accused, it will be observed that the instruction as given, did not restrict the evidence of good character, and its availability, to "doubtful cases." In an earlier case than any which we have as yet cited, being the case of the State vs. Horskin, 1 Houst. Crim. Cas. 116, it is said in the statement of the case that "the character of the prisoner, as a peaceable and quiet man was proved by several witnesses called in reply." The Court did not allude to this evidence in the charge, the concluding part of which is as follows: "The evidence, however, was before them, and it was for them alone to decide what were the facts and circumstances proved in the case. * * * * They should give the prisoner, however, the benefit of any reasonable doubt they might have in the case." The evidence of good character, therefore, seems to have been submitted to the jury in connection with the other evidence as any other fact or circumstance in the case.

In the case of the State vs. Horner and Spring, 15 Del. 514, 1 Marvel 504, 41 A. 139, decided in 1893, the Court departed from the general language used in the first two cases cited above and also that used in the subsequent cases which were followed substantially by the Court below, to express the rule with regard to character evidence. The Court said, "If from the testimony as presented by the other witnesses you are in doubt as to the guilt of the accused, then you may take into consideration the evidence of the witnesses as to their good character." Thus excluding from the consideration of the jury the evidence of such character until they should first determine whether they had a doubt as to the guilt of the accused upon the other evidence, which is the effect of the instruction given by the Court below upon the evidence of good character in the present case. But the Court added: "And you may consider whether it is more likely under all the circumstances of this case that Jerry Sullivan should be testifying to untruths, than that the defendants, being men of good character, should be guilty of the offense with which they are charged." Thus manifestly leaving the jury under this branch of the instruction to consider the evidence of good character in connection with the testimony of the principal witness, without that discrimination contained either in the first part thereof or in the instruction given by the Court below in the present case. And the jury were left to consider the evidence of good character as a circumstance in the case in connection with the testimony of the principal witness, and to determine whether it was more likely that the latter had testified falsely than that the defendants, if the jury should find that the evidence sustained their good character, should be guilty of the offense charged. It, therefore, appears from a close examination of the reported decisions in this State that the rulings of the Court respecting character evidence have not been altogether uniform; yet it is, nevertheless, true that the charge of the Court below has the authority of precedent.

State vs. Manlove, Supra; State vs. Smith, 14 Del. 588, 9 Houst. 588, 597, 33 A. 441; State vs. Brown, et. al., 16 Del. 380, 2 Marvel 380, 36 A. 458; State vs. Davis, 18 Del. 139, 2 Penne. 139, 45 A. 394.

And because of these former decisions in support of the instruction which was given in this case, the Deputy Attorney-General, representing the State, invoked the doctrine of stare decisis against a reversal of the the case at bar.

Before the adoption of the Constitution in 1897, vesting this Court with the jurisdiction to issue writs of error to the Court of Oyer and Terminer, and to the Court of General Sessions, and to determine all matters in error, the last named courts were each, within their respective criminal jurisdictions, courts of last resort, possessing original and final jurisdiction in all those criminal matters, vested in them, without any supervisory or appellate control of a higher Court. And the decisions of said courts, touching the weight and availability of character evidence, which were followed by the Court below, constitute the only barrier to an examination de novo of the relation of such evidence to the other evidence in the case.

The salutary effect of uniformity, certainty and stability in the law, and the perplexing difficulties and inconvenience to...