State, for Use of Miller v. Welsh

• Decision Date: 20 March 1931
• Docket Number: 27.
• Citation: 154 A. 51,160 Md. 542
• Parties: STATE FOR USE OF MILLER v. WELSH.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

154 A. 51

160 Md. 542

STATE FOR USE OF MILLER v. WELSH.

No. 27.

Court of Appeals of Maryland

March 20, 1931

Appeal from Baltimore City Court; Joseph N. Ulman, Judge.

Suit by the State, for the use of Charles H. Miller, Sr., father of Charles H. Miller, Jr., deceased, against Maud M. Welsh. From the judgment, plaintiff appeals.

Affirmed.

Argued before BOND, C.J., and PATTISON, URNER, ADKINS, OFFUTT DIGGES, PARKE, and SLOAN, JJ.

W LeRoy Ortel and H. Mortimer Kremer, both of Baltimore, for appellant.

William D. Macmillan, of Baltimore (Semmes, Bowen & Semmes, of Baltimore, on the brief), for appellee.

BOND C.J.

In a suit at law for damages from death by negligence, the trial court denied a motion made by the plaintiff, now appellant before striking any names from a list of twenty jurors supplied him, to examine the entire panel of jurors to ascertain whether cause for disqualification of any of them existed. In answer to a question by the court, the appellant announced that the purpose of the examination would be to ascertain whether any of the panel were acquainted with the parties. The court then denied the motion, and, instead asked, after the parties had struck from the list, whether any of the remaining twelve jurors were so acquainted with the parties. That action is the sole ground of appeal from a judgment for the defendant.

Either party has a right to have a list of twenty names of qualified persons supplied to him for striking off four, and as a means of ascertaining the existence of any ground of disqualification has a right to have the members of the full panel examined on their voir dire. Lee v. Peter, 6 Gill & J. 447, 452; Edelen v. Gough, 8 Gill, 87, 90; Hamlin v. State, 67 Md. 333, 337, 10 A. 214, 301; Lockhart v. State, 145 Md. 602, 613, 125 A. 829; Beck v. State, 151 Md. 615, 617, 135 A. 410; Code art. 51, § 13. "Each party is authorized, without any cause of challenge, for reasons confined to his own bosom, to strike from the list of twenty jurors, the four persons whom he is least willing should sit in judgment upon his rights. To secure the full enjoyment of this valuable franchise, it is manifest that the panel, before it is stricken from, should present twenty names beyond the reach of challenge. * * * We think, therefore, that the county court erred in refusing to hear and determine the causes of challenge to the polls, made by the plaintiff below, until he had...