United States v. Hall
| Decision Date | 13 December 1890 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES v. HALL et al. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Southern District of Georgia |
Syllabus by the Court
The act of congress of June, 1872, as embodied in section 819 of the Revised Statutes, restricts parties indicted for felony to 20 peremptory challenges; and, where several parties are indicted for a joint felony, they are deemed a single party for the purposes of all challenges under that section.
Marion Erwin, U.S. Atty., and Fleming du Bignon, for prosecution.
Dessau & Bartlett, Bacon & Rutherford, and C. C. Smith, for defendants.
The question which the court took under consideration was upon the motion of the prosecuting counsel, made before the defendants had exhausted any of their challenges to jurors that the court would, as a guide for the conduct of the case place its construction on section 819 of the Revised Statutes, which fixes and regulates the number of challenges in criminal and civil cases in the courts of the United States. The first portion of this statute is taken from the act of congress approved March 3, 1865, entitled 'An act regulating proceedings in criminal cases, and for other purposes. ' The section provides that, when the offense charged be treason, or a capital offense, the defendants shall be entitled to 20, and the United States to 5 peremptory challenges. In the act of June, 1872, which is entitled 'An act to amend an act regulating proceedings in criminal cases, and for other purposes,' approved March 3, 1865, the statute, as it is embodied in the Revised Statutes of the United States, was enacted. It superadded, to the language just quoted from the Acts of 1865, the following language:
'On trial of any other felony, the defendant shall be entitled to ten, and the United States to three, peremptory challenges and in all other cases, civil and criminal, each party shall be entitled to three peremptory challenges, and in all cases where there are several defendants, or several plaintiffs, the parties on each side shall be deemed a single party for the purposes of all challenges under this section.'
The contention of the government in the case before the court is, that, there being several defendants, they shall be deemed a single party for the purposes of all challenges under this section, and, therefore, as a single party has but 20 challenges, and as they are to be deemed by the statute a single party for the purposes of all challenges, that they are to be restricted to that number. At common law each of the defendants would have been entitled to 35 challenges. The congress of 1790, as it had the clear right to do, limited the number of peremptory challenges in cases of treason to 35, and in other capital offenses to 20. It was held, under this statute, in the case of U.S. v. Marchant, 12 Wheat. 483, that each prisoner was entitled to the full number of challenges. See, also, U.S. v. Shackleford, 18 How. 590. The number was further reduced, as we have seen, by the act of March 3, 1865, regulating proceedings in criminal cases, and by the act of June 8, 1872. The government insists that congress further provided that, where there were several defendants, they shall be deemed a single party for the purposes of challenges. It is undoubtedly in the power of congress to regulate all the details of procedure in criminal trials in the courts of the United States.
In the absence of a statutory change made by congress, we would still have the number of challenges provided by the common law. That this has been changed is undeniable, so far as the number is concerned, and it only remains for the court to determine whether it has been changed so as to deny each of ...
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