State v. Maben

• Decision Date: 15 December 1890
• Citation: 45 Minn. 56,47 N.W. 306
• Parties: STATE v MABEN.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

45 Minn. 56

47 N.W. 306

STATEvMABEN.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

Dec. 15, 1890.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

Under the statute regulating trials in the municipal court of the city of Minneapolis, jurors for the trial of criminal cases are required to be taken from the regular panel of jurors selected in accordance with the statute for service in that court. The fact that no such jury is in actual attendance upon the court, or that the jury may have been excused from attendance, does not justify a special venire for the selecting of a jury from the general body of those liable to jury duty.

Appeal from municipal court of Minneapolis; EMERY, Judge.

Geo. C. Ripley, C. E. Brennan, S. A. Booth, and F. P. Lane, for appellant.

Albert H. Hall, for the State.

DICKINSON, J.

The defendant, having been convicted criminally in the municipal court of the city of Minneapolis upon a charge of libel, appealed from the judgment. No question is raised as to the jurisdictionof the court in this case. It is assigned as error that the defendant was required to go to trial before a jury called upon a special venire instead of before a jury regularly drawn in the manner provided by statute. The statute relating to the subject is chapter 34, Sp. Laws, 1889, consolidating and amending the several acts relating to this municipal court. The court is invested with jurisdiction in civil actions, and in criminal proceedings. It is provided in section 7 that, for the exercise of its criminal jurisdiction, the judge of this court shall open his court every morning, Sundays and holidays excepted, and proceed to hear and dispose of, in a summary manner, all cases which shall be brought before him for violations of the criminal laws of the state, or of the ordinances and laws of the city. Section 9 provides that regular terms of the court for the trial of civil actions shall be held on the first and third Tuesdays of each month, July and August excepted, which terms shall continue from day to day, with such adjournments as to the court may seem proper, until the business of each term is finished. Section 13 declares that the laws of a general nature, applicable to jury trials in the district court, shall apply to this municipal court, except as in this act provided. It prescribes the manner in which jurors shall be drawn, which is, in substance, as follows: On the second Mondays of February, May, August, and November in each year, designated officers are to select 63 persons to serve as jurors, when required and drawn, during the succeeding three months, and until their successors are selected and certified. On Thursday preceding the beginning of the first term in each month, 21 persons are to be drawn by lot, from those selected as above stated, and summoned to attend as jurors at the term next ensuing, and until excused by the court. “Out of the jurors so drawn and summoned, jurors shall be selected when required in the same manner as in the district courts of the state. Whenever a jury is required in a criminal case, it shall be selected from the panel so drawn.” In the same section it is further provided that, “whenever deemed necessary, said court shall...