Chance v. State

• Decision Date: 12 June 1934
• Citation: 155 So. 663,115 Fla. 379
• Parties: CHANCE v. STATE.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

155 So. 663

115 Fla. 379

CHANCE v. STATE.

Florida Supreme Court

June 12, 1934

En Banc.

Error to Circuit Court, Calhoun County; Amos Lewis, Judge.

J. P I. Chance, alias Jim Chance, was convicted of murder in the second degree, and he brings error.

Reversed for appropriate proceedings.

COUNSEL

H. V. McClellan and Thomas C. Ray, both of Blountstown, for plaintiff in error.

Cary D Landis, Atty. Gen., and Roy Campbell, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

OPINION

PER CURIAM.

Upon an indictment for murder in the first degree, the accused was convicted of murder in the second degree and sentenced to life imprisonment. On writ of error it is contended, among other things, that the trial court erred in overruling a challenge to the array of jurors, made on the ground that other persons than the county commissioners were allowed to assist in the selection of the names put in the jury box.

A challenge to the array or motion to quash the panel or the venire of jurors goes to illegalities in selecting names of persons for jury service or in drawing or impaneling the petit jury--to some matter by which the panel was formed--not to the qualifications of individual members of a panel or venire. Lake v. State, 100 Fla. 386, 129 So. 833; Presley v. State, 61 Fla. 46, 54 So. 367; 35 C.J 374.

Section 4444(2772), Compiled General Laws, requires the county commissioners to 'personally select and make out a list of' the names of persons qualified under the statute to be placed in the jury box, and requires the names to be of 'such persons only as the said commissioners know, or have good reason to believe, are law abiding citizens of approved integrity, good character, sound judgment and intelligence, and who are not physically or mentally infirm which list shall be signed and verified by the said commissioners as having been personally selected.'

The statute specifically prescribed the duties of the county commissioners inpersonally selecting and certifying the lists of names of qualified persons for jury duty; and failure to substantially comply with the requirements of the statute may be ground for adjudging a venire or panel of jurors to be invalid upon appropriate procedure duly taken. Lake v. State, 100 Fla. 367, text 369, 129 So. 834.

The county commissioners who are authorized to make selections of qualified persons for jury duty 'cannot delegate that duty to any other person, but must themselves make the selection, and they cannot by subsequently ratifying a selection made by some other person render the selection valid. Moreover, the selection must be made by the board as a whole, and not as individuals.' 35 C.J. 262.

The challenge to the array or motion to quash the venires is as follows:

'Now comes the defendant, by his attorneys, and challenges the array of jurors, both of the special and regular venires and prays the panels be quashed, vacated and set aside on the following grounds, to-wit:

'That by virtue of an order made by this Honorable Court, dated June 29, 1933, in which the County Commissioners of Calhoun County, Florida, were required and ordered to meet at the Court House in Blountstown, Florida, on the 3rd day of July, A. D. 1933, for the purpose of making and selecting an additional list of persons to serve as jurors in the Circuit Court of Calhoun County, said order directing that the additional list contain the names of two hundred and fifty persons properly qualified to serve as jurors in said county, all to be done in accordance with the laws governing the qualifications of jurors.

'That the Board of County Commissioners did meet at the Court House in Blountstown, Florida, on the 3rd day of July, 1933, and that two hundred and fifty names additional were placed in the jury box, but that said names were not personally selected by the members of the Board of

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