Opinion
SEPTEMBER TERM, 1850.
The proper time to ascertain whether the jury have mistaken the charge of the court is immediately after the verdict is returned; and the affidavits of jurors, made several days after the verdict, as to their understanding of the charge, will not be received upon a motion for new trial.
THIS was a motion for a new trial. This case was tried at the last term of the court and a verdict returned in favor of the plaintiff. The defendants move that a new trial may be granted, on the ground that the jury returned their verdict under a misapprehension of the law as given by the court, and that had they understood the charge of the court upon the law to have been as it really was, they would have returned a different verdict; and this the defendants offered to prove by the affidavits of three of the jurors.
The proper time to ascertain whether or not the jury have mistaken the meaning of the charge, is immediately after the verdict is returned, while the jury may be polled. It would be exceedingly dangerous to grant new trials, upon the testimony of jurors, as to their understanding of the charge, given several days after verdict, and when their recollections of the case have become more or less indistinct.