State v. County Board of Renville County
| Decision Date | 22 April 1927 |
| Docket Number | No. 26227.,26227. |
| Citation | 171 Minn. 177,213 N.W. 545 |
| Parties | STATE ex rel. PASSER v. COUNTY BOARD OF RENVILLE COUNTY. |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Appeal from District Court, Renville County; Harold Baker, Judge.
Proceeding by the State, on the relation of Irene Passer, against the County Board of Renville County for mandamus. From a judgment for the relator, defendant appeals. Reversed.
James B. Baker, of Bird Island, for appelpellant.
L. J. Lauerman, of Olivia, for respondent.
The county attorney of Renville county informed the county board at its annual meeting in January, 1927, that he had several carnal knowledge cases to be tried at the May, 1927, term of the district court, and did not believe that women would wish to sit as jurors in cases of that kind. He recommended that the board refrain from placing the names of women upon the jury lists for 1927 then about to be prepared. In response to the recommendation, a motion was put and carried providing "that no names of women shall be placed upon the jury lists now to be prepared for 1927." The grand and petit jury lists were then made up, naming men only. Thereafter the relator, who is a legal voter of Renville county, applied to the district court for an alternative writ of mandamus requiring the county board to cancel the lists and prepare new ones. The facts are set forth in a stipulation adopted in the court's findings. It was held that the action of the board was arbitrary and illegal and that the names placed on the jury lists were not selected from the qualified voters of the county as required by section 9468, G. S. 1923. Judgment was entered accordingly, and the county board appealed.
After the adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment to the federal Constitution, the Legislature amended the jury law so that all provisions relative to the qualification of jurors now include women as well as men and all sex qualifications are removed. See sections 9456, 9457, G. S. 1923.
Two questions are presented. The first is whether the county board, in the exercise of its discretion, could resolve in advance of the selection of jurors that only men's names should be placed on the lists; and, the second, whether the relator, as a qualified woman voter of Renville county, can compel the board, by mandamus, to do away with the discrimination against her sex.
The right to vote and the privilege to serve as a juror are not correlative or necessarily coexistent. Jury service is an obligation imposed on citizens who possess the requisite qualifications. What the state demands is service, and, in the absence of constitutional limitation, the Legislature may determine who shall render that service and what qualifications are necessary. See State v. Walker, 192 Iowa, 823, 185 N. W. 619, where the authorities supporting these propositions are reviewed. In Neal v. Delaware, 103 U. S. 370, 26 L. Ed. 567, it was held that in the selection of jurors to pass upon the life, liberty, or property of a colored citizen there can be no exclusion of his race or discrimination against them because of their color. The Supreme Court of the United States has repeatedly held that discrimination against persons qualified to serve as jurors, solely because of their race or color, is a denial of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment, and that such a discrimination entitles a person of the race against which it is practiced to interpose a challenge to the jury panel when he is a party to an action to be tried before a jury drawn from the panel. See Martin v. Texas, 200 U. S. 316, 26 S. Ct. 338, 50 L. Ed. 497, where the earlier cases are cited.
The authorities seem to agree that the officials charged with the duty of selecting the jury panel have full power to decide whether a particular person possesses the qualifications prescribed by statute and is fit to serve as a juror, but there must be no distinction or discrimination against any particular class because of race, sex or occupation. The cases will be found in 35 C. J. at pages 262, 263. That doctrine holds good here. In the selection of jurors to pass upon the liberty and property of women as well as men, there must be no discrimination against women. A county board has no more right to discriminate against them in preparing jury lists than it would have to discriminate against a class of persons engaged in a particular occupation as, for example, farmers, merchants, or day laborers. The action of the board in advance of the...
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