State v. Williams
| Decision Date | 30 June 1855 |
| Citation | 47 N.C. 257,2 Jones 257 |
| Court | North Carolina Supreme Court |
| Parties | STATE v. JOSEPH T. WILLIAMS. |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
The maxim “ falsum in uno, falsum in omnibus,” is, in a common law trial, to be applied by the jury according to their own judgment for the ascertainment of the truth, and is not a rule of law in virtue of which the Judge may withdraw the evidence from their consideration, or direct them to disregard it altogether.
Where a witness has wilfully perjured himself in the oath taken on the trial then in progress, in any one particular, the Court should instruct the jury, as a rule of law, that his whole testimony should be disregarded.
INDICTMENT for MURDER, tried before his Honor Judge DICK, at the Spring Term, 1855, of Person Superior Court.
On the trial, a witness by the name of Jordan Motly, having been examined on behalf of the prosecution, was asked, upon his cross examination, whether he had made as full a disclosure to the grand jury (before whom he had been sworn) as he had done on this trial? He answered that he had not: that some of the acts and declarations of the prisoner, he had never disclosed heretofore, except to the State's counsel: that his motive for making this suppression was to favor the prisoner: that in certain communications, which had passed between them, the prisoner had appealed to him, and said a full disclosure would go hard with him, and he had promised the prisoner not to testify against him, any further than he was compelled: that in pursuance of this promise, he proposed to the grand jury, on his examination before them, that he would answer such questions as they might think proper to ask him; to which they acceded: so far as he was interrogated, he stated before that body every thing truly; but as to the things that had been added in his present statement, he was not questioned, and so he avoided giving them in evidence.
The prisoner's counsel called on the Court to instruct the jury, that as the witness stood convicted, by his own confession of a perjury, in wilfully suppressing the truth before the grand jury, they should not take his evidence into consideration in making up their verdict.
His Honor declined giving the instruction, as asked; but told them that “the objection taken, went to the credibility of the witness, and they were at liberty to take into consideration his evidence, in connection with the other evidence and to say what it was worth.”
To which the defendant's counsel excepted. Verdict of guilty. Judgment and appeal.
Attorney General, for the State .
Morehead and Miller, for defendant .
The instruction was asked for upon the authority of State v. Jim, 1 Dev. 509. Conceding that perjury is committed, as well by the corrupt suppression of truth, as by the suggestion of falsehood, and that the matter suppressed by the witness before the grand jury was material, the question is presented, does the decision in that case settle, as a rule of evidence in the Common Law Courts, the doctrine contended for by the prisoner's counsel?
This question has been fully discussed: we have had the aid of two arguments at this term, for it so happened that the same point was made in State v. Alfred Woodly. (See next case.) There, the examination of the principal witness on the part of the State, taken in writing by the committing magistrate, varied from his testimony before the jury, and his Honor, Judge PERSON, held that if the jury were satisfied that any material part of his testimony, given before them, was corruptly false, the whole must be rejected: but that if perjury was committed upon his examination before the magistrate, “the rule” did not apply, and the evidence was to be weighed by the jury.
The Attorney General insisted that this was the proper limit of the rule, and that it had no application unless a false oath was taken before the jury who were trying the issue. He admitted this distinction was not taken in Jim's case--there the variance was between the testimony given to the jury who were trying the issue, and that given to a jury on a former trial; but he contended that without this distinction, trials would become so complicated as to render it impossible to reach the merits, and cases would turn, not upon the question of guilt, but upon the conflict of testimony. He suggested as a further ground in support of the distinction, when the false oath is taken before the trial, there is locus penitentiæ, and reason to suppose, more or less probable in proportion to the interval of time between the two oaths, that the witness has reformed and become a better man: whereas there is no room for reformation when the false oath is taken presently--before the jury who are trying the issue.
The first ground may have some force as an objection to the rule itself; but it has no tendency to fix the limit of the rule, because it rests entirely upon the degree of inconvenience, which, having no limit of its own, can make none for the rule.
The second is too narrow to be made the foundation of a rule of law: For that purpose, it would seem, something broader is necessary than the possibility that one who committed perjury yesterday, had, by to-day “reformed and become a better man.” Besides, it is opposed to the analogy of the rule of evidence, of which the rule under consideration is a corrollary. One convicted of perjury, is an incompetent witness, although the offense was committed ten years ago. No regard, whatever, is paid to the length of time during which there was room for reformation, and the possibility that the witness “had seen the error of his ways.”
The proper limit of the rule must depend on the reason on which it is founded: The reason given for it is, that “there is no difference in principle and should be none in practice, between a person heretofore judicially convicted of perjury and one who stands convicted, before the jury who are trying the issue, of a perjury committed in the case.”
The reason includes any perjury committed during the progress of the case, of which the evidence before the jury is sufficient to convict the witness: of course the rule must be equally broad in its operation.
The notion, that the operation of the rule is limited to cases where perjury is committed before the jury who are trying the issue, is not supported by any authority or even a dictum to be met with in the books; on the contrary, it is opposed by the only two cases in which the existence of the rule is supposed to be recognised and acted on by a court of Common Law. In Jim's case, the false oath was supposed to have been taken upon a former trial, or rather it was considered immaterial to ascertain upon which trial the false oath was taken, it being sufficient for the jury to be satisfied from the evidence before them, that a false oath had been taken, of which the variance between these two oaths was plenary proof. In Dunlap v. Patterson, 5 Cow. 243, (the only other case to be met with where the rule is acted on) the false oath had been taken in the trial of an action between different parties, although in regard to the same subject matter.
We are satisfied there is nothing in principle, analogy or authority, to restrain the operation of the rule to cases where perjury is committed before a jury who are trying the issue: on the contrary, the authorities, the analogy and the principle, upon which it is founded, bring within its operation, every case in which the jury, from the evidence before them, are satisfied that a witness has committed perjury. The rule gives to the conclusion of the jury the effect, and treats it as tantamount to a judicial conviction of perjury, and is put upon the single point, are the jury satisfied that the witness has committed perjury? If so, he is just as unworthy of belief as if he had been judicially convicted of it, without reference to the fact whether the perjury was committed upon a former trial of the issue, or before the committing magistrate or the grand jury, or the jury who are then trying the issue.
So the broad question is, does Jim's case settle any rule of evidence, to be acted on by a Court of Common Law where a jury is interposed for the trial of all cases of fact?
The point decided in Jim's case is this: the Judge, in the court below, charged the jury that “evincing a sound discretion, they might reject part of a witness' testimony which they did not believe, and act on such part as they did believe.” To this the prisoner excepted, and this Court award a venire de novo for error in the charge. Mr. Badger, amicus curiœ, suggested that if the jury thought a witness had sworn corruptly false, in any particular, they should disregard the testimony of such witness in toto: He stated “the reason of the rule to be, that the jury had, quoad the particular case, judicially ascertained the corruption of the witness, and therefore as to that case the result was the same, as in all other cases, where the corruption was judicially ascertained by a conviction for perjury.” Mr. Devereux, in place of the Attorney General, admitted the rule to be as stated by Mr. Badger. HENDERSON, Judge, adopts the reasoning of Mr. Badger, and comes to the conclusion that the Judge below erred: he says,
TAYLOR, Ch. Justice, also comes to the conclusion that the Judge below erred: but he puts his opinion upon a different ground, to wit, “our faith cannot be partial or fractional, the maxim being falsum in uno, &c.:” and the Judges agree, that as the jury may have been misled by the charge, and the case affects the life of the prisoner, there should be a venire de novo.
No authority is cited by the counsel, or by either of the Judges, and the question is, was it...
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