State v. Bass

• Decision Date: 20 May 1936
• Docket Number: 26536-26545.
• Citation: 1 N.E.2d 927,210 Ind. 181
• Parties: STATE v. BASS, and eight other cases.
• Court: Indiana Supreme Court

1 N.E.2d 927

210 Ind. 181

STATE v. BASS, and eight other cases.

Nos. 26536-26545.

Supreme Court of Indiana.

May 20, 1936

Hollis Bass, Roy Hullett, Mayme M. Hullett, Rice Madden and Estel Sarver were indicted for violations of the election law. The state demurred to defendants' answers on abatement. From judgments abating the indictments, the state appeals.

Affirmed.

Appeal from Warrick Circuit Court; Philip C. Gould Special judge.

Philip Lutz, Jr., Atty. Gen., and Caleb J. Lindsey, Asst. Atty Gen., for the State.

W. D Hardy, of Evansville, Addison Beavers, of Boonville, for appellees.

FANSLER, Judge.

Appellees were indicted for various violations of the election law (Burns' Ann.St.1933, § 29-101 et seq.). To the indictments all appellees filed answers in abatement, specifying eight reasons why the grand jury which returned the indictments was illegally drawn. To these answers the state demurred. The demurrers were sustained as to specifications 1, 2, 4, 5, and 6 of the answers, and overruled as to specifications 3, 7, and 8.

Error is assigned upon the overruling of the demurrers, and upon the ground that ‘ the court erred in rendering a judgment of acquittal of the appellees herein on their pleas in abatement.’

Specification 3 alleges in substance that the jury commissioners selected the names of twice as many persons as would be required by law for grand and petit jurors in the courts of Warrick county for all terms of said courts to commence within the year; that the names so selected were placed in the box furnished by the clerk, but that at the time said names were placed in the box there remained therein other names previously drawn by other jury commissioners, which had not been destroyed or emptied from said box, and that the box from which the grand jury which returned the indictment was drawn contained not only the names drawn by the jury commissioners, but such other and additional names.

In specification 8 it is alleged that the box in which the names drawn by the jury commissioners were deposited was kept in an open and exposed place in the office of the clerk, where persons other than the clerk had access to it; that the box was old and worn, and that the hinges and fasteners on the lid could be lifted so that it was possible to insert in the box slips of paper with names written thereon; that the name of William E. Hart was twice drawn from the box, first on the 30th day of April, for petit jury service, and on the 26th day of June, for grand jury service. This William E. Hart was one of the jury commissioners and an officer of the court, charged with the duty of selecting the names for jury service, and was not a qualified juror, and his name could not properly have been in the box.

It is alleged in one of the specifications that two of the members of the grand jury had been very active, and had interested themselves, in a movement to bring about the calling of a grand jury and an investigation of the matters concerning which the indictments were returned; that they had approached members of the county council and urged the making of an appropriation for the employment of a special prosecuting attorney. When the names were drawn for grand jury service, theirs were among the six names drawn.

From the earliest times rules and methods have been devised for drawing...