State v. Brooks
| Decision Date | 08 April 1920 |
| Docket Number | 4419. |
| Citation | 188 P. 942,57 Mont. 480 |
| Parties | STATE v. BROOKS. |
| Court | Montana Supreme Court |
Appeal from District Court, Beaverhead County; Jos. C. Smith, Judge.
Albert Brooks was convicted of sedition, and from the judgment and from an order denying his motion for new trial, he appeals. Reversed and remanded.
Pease & Stephenson, of Dillon, and Nolan & Donovan, of Butte, for appellant.
S. C Ford, of Helena, and Otto Gerth, of Great Falls, for the State.
The defendant was charged with the crime of sedition in obstructing and attempting to obstruct the national Selective Draft Law (U. S. Comp. St. 1918, Comp. St. Ann. Supp. 1919 §§ 2044a-2044k) and the recruiting and enlistment service of the United States at a time when this nation was engaged in the World War, by distributing a pamphlet entitled "War and the Workers by Walker C. Smith." He was convicted and sentenced to imprisonment in the penitentiary and has appealed from the judgment and from an order denying his motion for a new trial.
The principal errors assigned relate to the preliminaries of the trial. Counsel for defendant obtained leave of court to read the information to the jurors as a basis for the voir dire examination, but after reading the formal portion was stopped, upon objection of the county attorney, and denied the right to read the copy of the pamphlet contained in the information. We are unable to understand the theory of the court's ruling. The record discloses that the county attorney had "made a brief statement to the entire panel as to the nature of the case on trial," but the objection interposed to the reading of the information discloses that the contents of the pamphlet had not been made known to the jurors, and that for some reason the county attorney was trying to prevent the contents becoming known to them at that time. The voir dire examination of jurors in any criminal case would be an idle ceremony, a useless waste of time, unless the jurors were first made acquainted with the details of the charge preferred against the accused. As a matter of practice it is immaterial whether the substance of the charge be disclosed by reading the information or by an oral statement of counsel. It is apparent, however, that in this instance the objection was not to the mode of procedure but to the procedure itself. The voir dire examination of jurors is a right secured to the defendant by the statutes and has a definite double purpose: First, to ascertain whether there exist grounds for challenge for cause; and, second, to enable counsel to exercise intelligently the peremptory challenges allowed by law. State v. Morgan, 23 Utah, 212, 64 P. 356; 24 Cyc. 338; 16 R. C. L. 281. The trial court erred in refusing to permit counsel for defendant to make known to the jury the details of the charge preferred against the accused.
In the selection of the jury counsel for defendant challenged for actual bias Jurors Stinson, Hollingsworth, Andrus, Barrett, and Shawver, but each of the challenges was overruled. Defendant exhausted his peremptory challenges, and in doing so employed four of them to exclude from the jury Stinson, Hollingsworth, Andrus, and Barrett. Shawver was one of the jury that tried the cause and returned the verdict of guilty. Many of the assignments relate to the voir dire examination of these jurymen, including the ruling in each instance upon the challenge for cause. The attorney general insists that, since Stinson, Hollingsworth, Andrus, and Barrett were not of the jurors who tried the cause, the errors, if any, committed in the examination of them are not subject to review. Consideration of this question is not necessary to a determination of these appeals, and we reserve our decision upon it. Authorities favoring, and others in opposition to, the contention will be found cited in the note to State v. Thorne, Ann. Cas. 1915D, 98.
The rule is recognized everywhere, that if any objectionable juror is forced upon the defendant after he has exhausted his peremptory challenges, the ruling of the court denying a challenge for cause as to such juror will constitute reversible error if the challenge should have been sustained. Thompson & Merriam on Juries, § 276; 16 R. C. L. 291. The reason for the rule is apparent at first glance. The Constitution (article 3, § 16) guarantees to every one accused of crime the right to a trial by an impartial jury, and the term "impartial jury" means a jury every member of which is impartial.
The juror Shawver testified that he was acquainted with the organization known as the Industrial Workers of the World; that he entertained a bitter prejudice against the organization and against every member of it; that if it should be developed upon the trial, as it was, that the defendant was then a member of the organization, the prejudice would extend to him and would abide with the juror throughout the trial; that it would require evidence to remove the prejudice and would require less evidence to convict the defendant than it would if he were not a member.
Actual bias is defined by section 9261, subd. 2, Revised Codes, as:
"The existence of a state of mind on the part of the juror in reference to the case, or to either of the parties, which will prevent him from acting with entire impartiality and without prejudice to the substantial rights of either party."
The constitutional right to trial by an impartial jury is an unqualified one. The guaranty of that right is found in our Bill of Rights, which declares the fundamental principles necessary to the protection of liberty and the security of government, and which, to all people of the Anglo-Saxon race, are their heritage from the great charter of English liberty. It is beyond the power of the Legislature to curtail the right, and therefore the provisions of the statutes which relate to the selection of a jury are to be understood as merely providing the means by which the constitutional guaranty may be exercised to the fullest extent.
Can it be said, then, that a juror who entertains a bitter prejudice against a class of which the defendant is one can act with entire impartiality in passing upon the question of the defendant's guilt or innocence? We think not, even if there were nothing further to shed light upon the state of his mind. Shane v. Butte Electric Ry. Co., 37 Mont. 599, 97 P. 958. In this instance we are not restricted to so meager a record. The juror testified that his prejudice was of such a character that it would abide with him throughout the trial or until evidence had been introduced sufficient to remove it.
Authorities are not wanting which hold that it is not per se a disqualification that the juror entertains prejudice against the defendant which requires evidence to remove, but with that doctrine we have no sympathy. The purpose of a trial of a criminal case is to determine the guilt or innocence of the accused, not to...
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