State v. May

• Decision Date: 28 March 1902
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE v. MAY.<SMALL><SUP>†</SUP></SMALL>

67 S.W. 566

168 Mo. 122

STATE v. MAY.^†

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 2.

March 28, 1902.

CRIMINAL LAW — JURORS — NUMBER OF PEREMPTORY CHALLENGES.

1. Under Rev. St. 1899, § 2621, providing that in criminal trials the state shall be entitled to a certain number of peremptory challenges, viz., in capital or life imprisonment cases 8, except that in all cities having 100,000 inhabitants it shall be entitled to 15 challenges, the number of challenges is determined by the place of trial, and not the place where the crime was committed.

2. The state being entitled to 15 peremptory challenges, and defendant to 20, in a capital case tried in a city having 100,000 population, and Rev. St. § 2624, providing that the state shall first announce its challenges, and then defendant shall announce his, and the remaining 12, or, if there be more, the first 12 names remaining, shall constitute the jury, refusal to quash the panel because containing less than 47 men is ground for new trial.

Appeal from criminal court, Buchanan county; Benj. J. Casteel, Judge.

Charles May was convicted of murder, and appeals. Reversed.

Jas. M. Wilson, Thos. B. Allen, and Morte H. Craig, Jr., for appellant. The Attorney General, for the State.

SHERWOOD, J.

On a former occasion, at the present term of this court, an opinion was delivered which affirmed the judgment of the trial court; and this because the bill of exceptions was not properly authenticated, and so we could not examine the errors alleged to have occurred during the progress of the trial. Since then, however, such action of the trial court has been taken that the record has been so amended nunc pro tunc as properly to authenticate the bill, and so we proceed to look into its now validated contents, and, in connection therewith, such portions of the record proper as are pertinent to such investigation. The charge is murder in the first degree, and that charge is supported by the verdict. The person slain was John R. Martin, and his death resulted from defendant shooting him dead with a pistol while he stood before his slayer unarmed. The indictment was found at the March term, 1901, of the Buchanan criminal court, which sits alone in the city of St. Joseph.

The controlling preliminary question in this case is: In a trial which occurs in a criminal court sitting alone in a city of over 100,000 inhabitants, and which court has jurisdiction, also, over the county in which such city is situate, what is the requisite number of jurors, where the trial is had on the charge here recorded, and where the crime is done in the county, but outside of the city limits? Section 2621, Rev. St. 1899, relied on by defendant, is as follows: "In all criminal trials the state shall be entitled to the following number of peremptory challenges, viz.: In cases specified in the first clause of section 2619, eight * * * except in all cities having a population of over one hundred thousand inhabitants the state shall be entitled to the following number of peremptory challenges, viz.: In all cases specified in the first clause of said section, fifteen. * * *" Section 2619, to which the section just quoted refers, makes provision in its...