State v. Stanton
| Decision Date | 29 April 1896 |
| Citation | 24 S.E. 536,118 N.C. 1182 |
| Parties | STATE v. STANTON et al. |
| Court | North Carolina Supreme Court |
Appeal from criminal court, Madison county; Ewart, Judge.
James Stanton and Rod Shelton were convicted of murder in the second degree, and appeal. Affirmed.
It is not ground of challenge to the array of a special venire that the sheriff failed to summon several persons named thereon.
J. M Moody, for appellant.
The Attorney General and J. M. Gudger, Jr., for the State.
The indictment is for murder. A special venire was ordered, and return thereof made. The defendants challenged the array on the grounds: First, that the sheriff had failed to summon several of the special venire drawn from the jury box second, that the jury boxes had not been revised by the county commissioners. The court properly declined to hear either one of the grounds of objection. There was no allegation that the sheriff acted corruptly, or with partiality, in summoning the venire, or that anything had been done affecting the "integrity and fairness of the entire panel." In State v. Whitt. 113 N.C. 716 18 S.E. 715, a challenge was made to the array, one of the grounds being, "because one of those named in the venire was not summoned." The objection was overruled, and this court affirmed the ruling of the court below. The same point had been decided in State v. Hensley, 94 N.C. 1021. In the last-named case it was decided that, while the county commissioners, who had failed to revise the jury list according to law, were guilty of neglect "highly culpable," and the clerk and sheriff were equally negligent in the performance of their respective duties as to the locking, custody, and safe-keeping of the box, yet the regulations concerning these matters were directory, and not mandatory, and that the "only essential was to obtain a fair and impartial jury composed of eligible men." It was not suggested, even, in the defendant's objection, that any names in the jury box were improperly there, or that any had been put there fraudulently, or that any had been taken out. There was not even a suspicion hinted at that the defendants might be prejudiced in the trial by reason of the matters stated in the opinion, and it does not appear anywhere that they were prejudiced. There was no error in the ruling of his honor.
The first special venire having been exhausted before the jury had been completed, the court made an order that another special venire of 30, returnable at once, should be summoned. Upon the return of this venire the defendants objected, on the ground that, "as the first venire had been drawn from the jury box, the court did not have the power to order a second venire to be summoned by the sheriff from the bystanders." The objection was overruled, and his honor was right in so doing. The statute (section 1739 of the Code) provides that the judge, in his discretion, has the power, the first venire proving insufficient, to order a further venire to be drawn from the box or summoned by the sheriff. State v. Brogden, 111 N.C. 656, 16 S.E. 170, construes the power of the judge under that statute.
Exceptions were made by the defendants to the ruling of his honor admitting the testimony of Jamison Chandley, George Franklin Hattie Franklin, and Baxter Shelton, witnesses for the state. Chandley had testified at considerable length, when the defendants' counsel objected without specifying what part of the evidence he objected to. He was informed by the solicitor that the object of the testimony was to show a conspiracy between the defendants to assault and beat deceased or to kill him. The witness then continued his testimony at great length, when objection was again made, "because there was no conspiracy charged in the indictment, and the conspiracy ought to be shown first before any circumstances were admissible; and the defendants objected to this whole evidence on that line as given so far." The witness still proceeded at length, when "defendants objected to all this testimony if made to show...
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