Gray v. State
| Decision Date | 10 December 1937 |
| Docket Number | 53. |
| Citation | 195 A. 591,173 Md. 690 |
| Parties | GRAY v. STATE. |
| Court | Maryland Court of Appeals |
Appeal from Circuit Court, Anne Arundel County; Linwood L. Clark Judge.
Luther Gray was convicted of larceny, and he appeals.
Reversed and new trial awarded.
Robert Moss, of Annapolis, for appellant.
Roscoe C. Rowe, State's Atty., and Albert J. Goodman, Sp. Asst State's Atty., both of Annapolis (Herbert R. O'Conor Atty. Gen., and Charles T. LeViness, III, Asst. Atty. Gen., on the brief), for the State.
Argued before BOND, C.J., and URNER, OFFUTT, PARKE, SLOAN, MITCHELL, SHEHAN, and JOHNSON, JJ.
At the trial of two prisoners on a joint indictment for larceny of tobacco of the value of $7.20, the attorney for one of them, the present appellant, requested that the jurors from which a panel was to be chosen be sworn on their voir dire, for questioning for possible grounds of challenging; and on an appeal from conviction and sentence the refusal of the court to permit it is urged as reversible error.
The crime charged was a misdemeanor, not punishable by death or confinement in the penitentiary. Code, art. 27, § 319, as amended by the Act of 1933, Special Session, c. 78. And there was no right in the appellant to peremptory challenges of jurors or to questioning for the purposes of peremptory challenges. Code, art. 51, § 19, Laws 1927, c. 347. He was entitled to have submitted to him a list of twenty names of jurors beyond the reach of challenge for cause, from which to strike his share of four names, that is, on the trial of two defendants jointly, to divide the number of jurors to be struck off. Hamlin v. State, 67 Md. 333, 335, 10 A. 214, 301. And to test the qualifications of the twenty he was entitled to have the prospective jurors sworn on their voir dire. Code, art. 51, §§ 13 to 17; Lee v. Peters, 6 Gill, & J. 447; Hamlin v. State, supra; Lockhart v. State, 145 Md. 602, 613, 125 A. 829; Beck v. State, 151 Md. 615, 620, 135 A. 410; State for Use of Miller v. Welsh, 160 Md. 542, 154 A. 51. But this would be only for the purpose of examining each of them on grounds for challenging for cause, and the trial court in this case inferred that the privilege of questioning was being demanded, not to test the qualifications, but for peremptory challenges only, which would not have been permissible. State for Use of Miller v. Welsh, supra. Cohen v. State, Md., 195 A. 532.
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