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In State v. Wright, 128 Me. 404, 148 A. 141, 142, Pierce v. Rodliff, supra, was cited with approval and consideration given to an alleged error not raised by exception but reached upon the motion for a new trial on the ground that the verdict was against the law.
Summary of this case from Cox v. Metropolitan Life InsuranceOpinion
Opinion December 16, 1929.
CRIMINAL LAW. PLEADING AND PRACTICE. JURY.
Criminality is not predicated upon mere negligence necessary to impose civil liability, but upon that degree of negligence or carelessness which is denominated gross or culpable. A jury is bound by the instructions, on questions of law, given by the presiding Justice and must be presumed to have followed them. Errors of law in criminal cases are not, as a general rule, open to review on appeals to this court. The appropriate practice is to present such errors by a Bill of Exceptions, and a departure from this practice is not to be encouraged. In this State, the principles applicable to a review of civil trials on a general motion for a new trial govern appeals in criminal cases. The Law Court must, therefore, recognize in criminal appeals the exception to the general rule of practice above stated, viz., that, where and only where manifest error in law has occurred in the trial of the case and injustice would inevitably result, the law of the case may be examined upon appeal and the verdict, if clearly wrong, set aside.
The verdict in the case at bar was based upon a misconception of the law and was responsive only to a measure of criminal guilt foreign to the indictment and unknown to the law.
On exceptions and appeal. An indictment charging the respondent with manslaughter. Upon the trial of the case, the jury rendered a verdict of guilty: thereupon the respondent filed a motion in arrest of judgment which the presiding Justice overruled, to which ruling the respondent excepted. The respondent also filed a motion to set the verdict aside, which motion also was denied by the presiding Justice, and from which ruling the respondent appealed. The respondent also filed exception to a portion of the charge of the presiding Justice. Appeal sustained.
The case fully appears in the opinion.
Carll N. Fenderson, County Attorney for State.
Frank A. Morey, for respondent.
SITTING: DEASY, C. J., DUNN, STURGIS, PATTANGALL, FARRINGTON, JJ.
The respondent was indicted for manslaughter. At the trial, the prosecution relied upon involuntary manslaughter and offered evidence to prove that the respondent, while on a hunting trip, negligently shot the deceased as he rode by on horseback.
Criminality is not predicated upon mere negligence necessary to impose civil liability but upon that degree of negligence or carelessness which is denominated gross or culpable. State v. Pond, 125 Me. 453; Fitzgerald v. State, 112 Ala. 39; People v. Adams, 289 Ill. 339, 345; Com. v. Pierce, 138 Mass. 165; Aiken v. Street Railway, 184 Mass. 271; State v. Lester, 127 Minn. 285; State v. Rountree, 181 N.C. 538; People v. Angelo, 221 N.Y. S., 49; 45 Corpus Juris, 1372; 29 Id., 1154. In his charge to the jury, the presiding Justice inadvertently failed to observe this distinction between civil and criminal negligence, instructing the jury to measure the respondent's guilt by the rules of negligence applicable only to civil cases. The jury were bound by these instructions, State v. Stevens, 53 Me. 548, and must be presumed to have followed them.
After verdict, counsel for the respondent moved for a new trial on the ground, among others, that the verdict was against the law. The motion was denied by the presiding Justice and an appeal taken to the Law Court under R. S., Chap. 136, Sec. 28. No exception to this erroneous instruction was reserved.
In our practice, in civil cases, errors of law are not as a general rule open to review on a motion for a new trial directed to this court. The same general rule applies to statutory appeals in criminal cases. The appropriate practice is to present such errors to this court in a Bill of Exceptions, and a departure from this practice is not to be encouraged.
In civil cases, however, an exception to this general rule has been recognized, and where, and only where, manifest error in law has occurred in the trial of cases and injustice would otherwise inevitably result, the law of the case may be examined upon a motion for a new trial on the ground that the verdict is against the law, and the verdict, if clearly wrong, set aside. Pierce v. Rodliff, 95 Me. 346, 348; Simonds v. Maine T. T. Co., 104 Me. 440, 443.
The same exception must be recognized in the review of criminal appeals. In this state the principles applicable to the review of civil trials on a general motion govern appeals in criminal cases. State v. Dodge, 124 Me. 243, 245; State v. Stain et al, 82 Me. 472, 489. And so in its review of criminal appeals, where the single question considered under the appeal was whether the verdict was against the evidence, this court has repeatedly ruled that the only question there to be determined was whether, in view of all the testimony in the case, the jury were warranted in believing beyond a reasonable doubt, and therefore in finding, that the respondent was guilty of the crime charged against him, State v. Lambert, 97 Me. 51; State v. Mulkerrin, 112 Me. 544; State v. Howard, 117 Me. 69; State v. Pond, supra; State v. Dodge, supra.
In the instant case, however, this review is not limited to the single question of whether the verdict is against the evidence as in the cases last cited. That question, on this record, we do not and can not determine. We are here concerned with a verdict based on a misconception of the law and responsive only to a measure of criminal guilt foreign to the indictment and unknown to the law. Such a verdict is against the law, and to allow it to stand is not justice. The rule of exception, adopted in Pierce v. Rodliff and Simonds v. Maine T. T. Co., both supra, can, without conflict with the opinions in State v. Lambert and affirming cases cited, be here applied. That it should be, is clear.
Without a consideration of the Bill of Exceptions or the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain the charge laid in the indictment, the entry is,
Appeal sustained.