Art. 1791.Comment On Facts By Judge Prohibited

Article 1791 draws a sharp line around the judge's role once a jury is hearing a case. In the jury's presence, the judge may not comment on the facts at all — not by commenting on or recapitulating the evidence, not by repeating a witness's testimony, and not by giving an opinion about what has been proved, has not been proved, or has been refuted. The judge's job in front of the jury is to run the trial and rule on the law, not to weigh in on what the facts show.

This is one of the places where Louisiana departs plainly from federal practice. Federal judges are permitted to comment on the evidence before the jury within limits, a longstanding feature of federal trial practice traced back to English common law. Article 1791 forecloses that entirely, keeping the jury as the sole judge of the facts and removing any risk that jurors defer to the judge's own read of the evidence rather than reaching their own.