Hayes v. State of Missouri

• Decision Date: 17 January 1887
• Citation: Hayes v. State of Missouri, 120 U.S. 68, 7 S.Ct. 350, 30 L.Ed. 578 (1887)
• Parties: HAYES v. STATE OF MISSOURI
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

120 U.S. 68

7 S.Ct. 350

30 L.Ed. 578

HAYES v. STATE OF MISSOURI.

January 17, 1887.

Jeff Chandler, for plaintiff in error.

B. G. Boone, Atty. Gen. of Missouri, for defendant in error.

FIELD, J.

The Revised Statutes of Missouri provide that, in all capital cases, except in cities having a population of over 100,000 inhabitants, the state shall be allowed eight peremptory challenges to jurors, and in such cities shall be allowed fifteen. Rev. St. Mo. §§ 1900, 1902.

The plaintiff in error, John Hayes, was indicted in the criminal court of St. Louis, a city of over 100,000 inhabitants, by its grand jury, for the crime of murder in shooting and killing one Mueller, in that city, on the twenty-sixth of August, 1881, and was tried in April, 1882, and convicted of murder in the first degree. A new trial having been obtained from the supreme court of the state, he was again tried in January, 1885, and convicted, as on the first trial, of murder in the first degree. Judgment of death followed. On appeal to the supreme court of the state, the judgment was affirmed, and the case is brought before us on error, upon the single ground that, by the law of Missouri providing that, in capital cases, in cities having a population of over 100,000 inhabitants, the state shall be allowed fifteen peremptory challenges to jurors, while elsewhere in Missouri the state is allowed in such cases only eight peremptory challenges, the accused is denied the equal protection of the laws enjoined by the fourteenth amendment of the constitution of the United States. When the jurors were summoned for the trial, and before any peremptory challenges were made by the state, the accused moved the court to limit the state's peremptory challenges to eight, objecting to its being allowed more than that number. But the motion was overruled, and the accused excepted. And, on the trial, against his protest and objection, the state challenged peremptorily 15 of the 47 qualified jurors.

The constitution of Missouri, and, indeed, of every state of the Union, guaranties to all persons accused of a capital offense, or of a felony of lower grade, the right to a trial by an impartial jury, selected from the county or city where the offense is alleged to have been committed; and this implies that the jurors shall be free from all bias for or against the accused. In providing such a body of jurors, the state affords the surest means of protecting the accused against an unjust conviction, and at the same time of enforcing the laws against offenders meriting punishment. To secure such a body numerous legislative directions are necessary, prescribing the class from whom the jurors are to be taken, whether from voters, tax-payers, and freeholders, or from the mass of the population indiscriminately; the number to be summoned from whom the trial jurors are to be selected; the manner in which their selection is to be made; the objections that may be offered to those returned, and how such objections shall be presented, considered, and disposed of; the oath to be administered to those selected; the custody in which they shall be kept during the progress of the trial; the form and presentation of their verdict; and many other particulars. All these, it may be said in general, are matters of legislative discretion. But to prescribe whatever will tend to secure the impartiality of jurors in criminal cases is not only within the competency of the legislature, but is among its highest duties. It is to be remembered that such im artiality requires, not only freedom from any bias against the accused, but also from any prejudice against his prosecution. Between him and the state the scales are to be evenly held.

Experience has shown that one of the most effective means to free the jurybox from men unfit to be there is the exercise of the peremptory challenge. The public prosecutor may have the strongest reasons to distrust the character of a juror offered, from his habits and associations, and yet find it difficult to formulate and sustain a legal objection to him. In such cases, the peremptory challenge is a protection against his being accepted. The number of such challenges must necessarily depend upon the discretion of the legislature, and may vary according to the condition of different communities, and the difficulties in them of securing intelligent and impartial jurors....