The court considered the balance of judicial summings up to juries and the permissible limits of judicial comment: ‘The learned judge is said to have interfered improperly in the conduct of the case, and not to have put it fairly to the jury, and not to have stated the law properly. The latter would be fatal unless the case came within the proviso of the section. The other observations of the learned judge only become grounds of appeal if they have in fact caused substantial miscarriage of justice. In our view, a judge is not only entitled, but ought, to give the jury some assistance on questions of fact as well as on questions of law. Of course, questions of fact are for the jury and not for the judge, yet the judge has experience on the bearing of evidence, and in dealing with the relevancy of questions of fact, and it is therefore right that the jury should have the assistance of the judge. It is not wrong for the judge to give confident opinions upon questions of fact. It is impossible for him to deal with doubtful points of fact unless he can state some of the facts confidently to the jury. It is necessary for him sometimes to express extremely confident opinions. The mere finding, therefore, of very confident expressions in the summing up does not show that it is an improper one. When one is considering the effect of a summing up, one must give credit to the jury for intelligence, and for the knowledge that they are not bound by the expressions of the judge upon questions of fact. No doubt the learned judge did express himself very strongly. But on the main question we think him right.’
Judges:
Channell J
Citations:
(1909) 2 Cr App R 197
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Regina v Derek William Bentley (Deceased) CACD 30-Jul-1998
The defendant had been convicted of murder in 1952, and hung. A court hearing an appeal after many years must apply laws from different eras to different aspects. The law of the offence (of murder) to be applied was that at the time of the offence. . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Criminal Practice
Updated: 25 November 2022; Ref: scu.192073