State v. Green
| Decision Date | 01 March 1891 |
| Docket Number | 10,771 |
| Citation | 9 So. 42,43 La.Ann. 402 |
| Court | Louisiana Supreme Court |
| Parties | THE STATE OF LOUISIANA v. WILLIAM GREEN |
APPEAL from the Twenty-sixth District Court, Parish of Jefferson. Rost, J.
W. H Rogers, Attorney General, for State and Appellee.
H. N Gautier, for Defendant and Appellant.
The defendant was indicted for murder, tried, and on the return by the jury of an unqualified verdict of guilty, sentenced to be executed. He has appealed.
His defences are (1) motions to quash the indictment and set aside the panel, both of which are based on the same facts; (2) a motion to draw and summon additional jurors, which was overruled; (3) that he had not been served with a list of jurors who were to pass upon his case two entire days before his trial; (4) the denial of his motion for a continuance; (5) that the tales juror, Philip Pierce, was not a qualified juror; (6) the denial of his motion in arrest of judgment; (7) the overruling of a motion for a new trial; and (8) an objection to the charge to the jury.
1. It is urged in the motion to quash the indictment and set aside the jury that two of the jury commissioners who assisted in drawing the jury were disqualified, the first for having accepted the office of school director after his appointment as jury commissioner, and the second on account of not being a citizen of the United States.
The office of school director was accepted by the jury commissioner before his appointment to the latter position. He was appointed levee inspector by the Board of Commissioners of the Pontchartrain Levee District. This is not an office within the meaning of the Constitution. He held no appointment from the State.
The jury commissioner Weeks was a naturalized citizen of the United States when appointed to the office of jury commissioner. Both grounds are untenable.
The second ground is that the jury commissioners did not draw the jury from all persons residing in the parish, as the list was made from qualified voters alone, to the exclusion of all other persons duly qualified.
Section 4 of Act 44, of 1877, directs the jury commission to select the names from persons qualified as jurors under the act.
Section 1 of the act defines the qualification of a juror "to be a citizen and a bona fide male resident of the parish in and for which the court is to be holden, for one year next preceding such service; not under indictment or charged with any infamous crime or offence punishable by hard labor."
The accused has failed to show that the jury was not legally qualified. The objection is that the jury was drawn from the qualified voters of the parish. The act does not direct from what source the commissioner shall obtain its knowledge of qualified jurors. The fact of selecting jurors from the qualified voters of the parish does not show that any particular class of persons is excluded from the jury list. On the contrary, it is the best evidence that the intention of the commissioner was not to exclude any class. It is to be presumed that the names of all citizens of the parish who are qualified to serve as jurors are to be found among the voters of the parish.
He also urges that there is no evidence that prior to and at the drawing of the jury, the venire box contained the names of 300 good, competent men taken from all persons residing in the parish having the necessary qualifications of jurors; that there is no evidence in the proces verbal of the drawing of the jury, of the number of the names of dead or disqualified jurors and the number of those supplemented; that the proces verbal contains, instead of facts, conclusions of law.
Section 4 of Act 44, of 1877, requires the names of 300 jurors originally deposited in the venire box to be kept up to that number by the placing therein the names of qualified jurors to replace those who have died, removed from the parish, become exempt or disqualified.
The proces verbal shows that the jury commissioners "erased from the 'general venire' list the names of such persons as having served as jurors at the last term of court, as well as the names of others on the list who are known to have died or removed from the parish, or became disqualified to serve as jurors since their names were entered thereon, and said names having been taken from the 'general venire' book, the commissioners then supplemented the 'general venire' list and the ballots in the box with names of the same number of good and competent men, the qualified voters of the parish as have been taken from the box and erased from the list, after which the jury commissioners drew from the 'general venire' box, one name at a time and according to law, 110 names."
This proces verbal is in accordance with the provision of Act 44 of 1877. It states the acts of the commissioners as required by said act. It was not necessary that the jury commissioners should...
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