Kerwin v. People of State
| Decision Date | 30 September 1880 |
| Citation | 96 Ill. 206,1880 WL 10094 |
| Parties | ALEXANDER KERWINv.THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS. |
| Court | Illinois Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
WRIT OF ERROR to the Criminal Court of Cook county, the Hon. SIDNEY SMITH, Judge, presiding.
Mr. WILLIAM S. BRACKETT, for the plaintiff in error.
Plaintiff in error was convicted of a felony at the April term, 1880, of the Criminal Court of Cook county, and sentenced to imprisonment in the penitentiary. In selecting the jury upon the trial, after the peremptory challenges of the accused had been exhausted, two jurors were called who were not freeholders nor householders. He challenged each of them for cause, his counsel taking the position that under our law to be a freeholder is a necessary qualification of a juror. His challenges were overruled, and he excepted. This is alleged to be error, and presents the only question in this case.
The line of argument is, that by the common law, jurors are required to be freeholders, and that this was a necessary qualification. That this provision of the common law was in force in the Territory of Illinois, unrepealed by statute, when the first constitution of Illinois was adopted, declaring that the “right of trial by jury shall remain inviolate.” We are then referred to Ross v. Irving, 14 Ill. 179, to the declaration of this court, that this provision of the constitution of 1818 means that the right of trial by jury shall remain as it was understood to exist at the time of the adoption of that constitution.
This position is followed with the position that the statute of Illinois, now in force, does not abolish the freehold qualification, but, on the contrary, retains it, and that position is attempted to be sustained by reference to the fourth clause in the second section of the act, (Rev. Stat. 1874, ch. 78,) in which the classes of persons from whom jurors shall be selected are described, among other qualifications, as those “free from all legal exceptions,” etc., and it is insisted that, inasmuch as the want of a freehold was, at common law, a legal exception to a juror, therefore, it continues to be a legal exception under our statute.
There are some things to be considered, in this connection, not noticed in this line of argument. There can be no doubt that at common law it was an essential qualification of a juror that he should be a freeholder, and that seems to have been the law in the Territory and State of Illinois from its earliest settlement until 1827, but by an act of the General Assembly of this State, prescribing the mode of summoning grand and petit jurors, and defining their qualifications and duties, (Rev....
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...I. & I. R. Co. v. Stauber, 185 Ill. 9, 14, 56 N.E. 1079; Davis v. Northwestern El. R. Co., 170 Ill. 595, 599, 48 N.E. 1058; Kerwin v. People, 96 Ill. 206. And there is no such requirement in the Federal statute. Franzen v. Chicago, M. & St. P. R. Co., 7 Cir., 278 F. 370, 372. And it was not......
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...that was not permitted at common law.’ In Illinois, the General Assembly has the right to prescribe the qualifications of jurors. Kerwin v. People, 96 Ill. 206.People v. Barnett, 319 Ill. 403, 150 N.E. 290, decided that the nineteenth amendment to the Federal constitution, U.S.C.A., had no ......
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Ramsey v. Tremont Lumber Co
... ... St. Rep. 789; Illinois Cent. R ... Co. v. Jewell, 46 Ill. 99, 92 Am. Dec. 240; Kerwin ... v. People, 96 Ill. 206; Conway v. Chicago G. W. Ry ... Co., 103 Iowa 373, 72 N.W. 543; ... ...
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Indiana, I.&I.R. Co. v. Stauber
...term, it was not an essential qualification of a juryman that he be a freeholder. This court has expressly held, in the case of Kerwin v. People, 96 Ill. 206, that the fact that a person is not a freeholder does not disqualify him from serving on a jury and is not a ground of challenge. It ......