McBane v. Angle

STEPHENS, Associate Justice.

The rulings complained of in the fourth and fifth assignments of error, as shown in bills of exception 4 and 5, were erroneous and presumptively prejudicial to appellant. It was the province of the jury and not of the judge to interpret the conduct of the witness Bourbounais in the light of the explanation offered by him. The court erred not only in excluding this explanation from the jury, but also in passing judgment upon the conduct of the witness— holding him guilty of an attempt to bribe—in the presence of the jury. The manifest tendency of this was to deprive…