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31 Mo. 406

State v. Stout

Supreme Court of Missouri

Decided January 15, 1861

Supreme Court of Missouri · decided 1861-01-15

The defendant was indicted under the statute for an assault upon one Pleasant Caps. At the trial defendant offered Henry Caps as a witness to prove that Pleasant Caps had fired a pistol, drawn a knife, and did other acts which threw the defendant on the defensive. The court gave this instruction for the State: “ 7.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1861-01-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 8 later decisions — most recently February 1922

8 state decisions

301861187018801890190019101920decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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Napton, Judge,

¶1delivered the opinion of the court.

¶2The refusal of the court to give the third instruction asked by the defendant, taken in connection with the seventh given *407for the State, had a tendency to withdraw from the jury altogether the question of self-defence. It is not usual for a court to point out a particular witness and tell the jury to disregard his testimony, if they think he has testified falsely in any material particular; and when this is done, and all instructions upon the defence which this witness’ testimony tends to establish are refused, the jury must understand the court to be of opinion that no case of self-defence is made out; in other words, that the testimony of the suspected witness.is entirely unworthy of credit. This conclusion may be correct, but it is the province of the jury, and not of the court, to pass upon the credibility of witnesses.

¶3Judgment reversed and case remanded;

Judge Ewing concurs. Judge Scott absent.
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