Charge, V

Definition and Citations:

To impose a burden, obligation, or lien; to create a claim against property; to claim, to demand; to accuse; to instruct a jury on matters of law. In the first sense above given, a jury in a criminal case is “charged” with the duty of trying the prisoner (or, as otherwise expressed, with his fate or his “deliverance”) as soon as they are impaneled and sworn, and at this moment the prisoner’s legal “jeopardy” begins. This is altogether a different matter from “charging” the jury in the sense of giving them instructions on matters of law, which is a function of the court. Tomasson v. State, 112 Tenn. 590, 79 S. W. 803.

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