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.
Black’s Law Online Dictionary
