Waters v. State

• Decision Date: 17 June 1879
• Citation: 51 Md. 430
• Parties: MEDFORD WATERS v. THE STATE OF MARYLAND.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

51 Md. 430

MEDFORD WATERS v. THE STATE OF MARYLAND.

Court of Appeals of Maryland

June 17, 1879

APPEAL from the Circuit Court for Cecil County.

The case is stated in the opinion of the Court.

The cause was argued for the appellee before BARTOL, C.J., BRENT MILLER, ALVEY, ROBINSON and IRVING, J., and submitted for the appellant.

William S. Evans and Hiram McCullough, for the appellant.

The test of qualification is not a matter purely in the discretion of the Court before which the case may be pending but is one established by law, and is consonant with usage and custom. But if discretionary, they are bound, in exercising that discretion, to be governed by the rules of reason and law. Coke's 2 nd Inst., 56 298.

"The law attaches the disqualification to the act of forming and expressing the opinion, and does not look beyond to examine the occasion or weigh the evidence on which the opinion is founded." People vs. Mather, 4 Wendell, 229; Same vs. Bodine, 1 Denio, 281.

Why should there be any distinction as to the ground of opinion whether formed from rumor, newspaper reports, reports of evidence before coroner's inquest, or from conversation with witnesses or persons professing to be acquainted with the facts and circumstances? The impression is on the mind of the offered juror all the same, and the object of any test is to afford full and ample protection to the accused by securing to him a fair and impartial trial by a jury free from impressions, not to subject him to the risk of committing his life and liberty to the keeping of men whose judgments are perverted by prejudice or bias. Commonwealth vs. Webster, 5 Cushing, 295.

The burden of all the tests adopted in the different Courts of this country and England, is to ascertain whether an opinion has been formed. If it is an opinion, it disqualifies; if it is a vague impression, it does not. Burr's Case, 4 Causes Celebres, 467; 2 Wharton's Amer. Crim. Law, sec. 2999; Sam vs. The State, 13 Smedes & Marshall, 189.

It matters not whether the opinion was formed from newspaper reports or from conversation with some one who professed to detail the facts. The question is, was the opinion formed? If it was, the offered juror was disqualified, and should have been rejected. To adopt any other test than that which we contend for, (viz., that the disqualification attaches to the forming and expressing of opinion,) would deprive the accused of that protection of life and liberty which the Constitution and law vouchsafe to every citizen.

In former times, newspaper reports were considered much more dangerous to the personal safety and legal rights of persons charged with crime, than the Court in this case appears to have regarded them. McNally on Evidence, 667.

Charles J. M. Gwinn, Attorney-General, for the appellee.

At common law the vicinetum, from which it was necessary that a juryman should be summoned, was the town, parish or hamlet nearest to the place where the question to be tried originated. 3 Thomas' Coke, mar. p. 466. Jurors were taken from such localities, because such persons would have a better and more certain knowledge of the fact to be tried than any other persons could have. 3 Thomas' Coke, mar. pp. 464, 465. It is plain, therefore, that by the common law, rightly understood, it could not have been a ground of objection to a juror that he had knowledge of the facts upon which he might as a juror be called upon to decide.

A juror could not have knowledge of the facts involved in a particular controversy, without having some opinion with reference to the bearing and effect of such facts. It would seem to follow, therefore, that, at common law, the knowledge of a juror of the facts of the controversy, and the circumstance that the juror had formed an opinion with relation to those facts, would not have disqualified such juror from becoming part of the panel. But although a juror chosen from among those who lived in the very neighborhood in which the matter in controversy arose, because of his better and more certain knowledge of the facts to be tried, would not have been disqualified at common law, because he had formed an opinion in relation to the facts to be tried, he would have been disqualified if it appeared that his mind was so convinced that the evidence to be given before him would not alter his convictions. Such a man, being a bondman to his prejudices, and without the freedom of mind which a juror should possess, was, at common law, properly disqualified as a juror. His settled pre-judgment was, in fact, a prejudice, amounting to a presumption of ill-will. 2 Hawk. P. C., (8 th Eng. Ed.,) 578.

It was the general principle that knowledge of the facts of a case, and an opinion in relation to those facts, did not disqualify a juror, which brought the Courts to the opinion that it was no ground of challenge to a juror that he had been upon a former jury, which convicted others upon the same indictment on which the prisoner was prosecuted; the reason for this conclusion being, that every man was tried upon the evidence of his own guilt, without reference to that of his associates. 1 Chitty's Crim. Law, mar. p. 543.

The rule was, that, although the juror had knowledge of the facts of the case, and had formed or expressed an opinion in relation to those facts, he was, nevertheless, competent to act as a juror if he remained possessed of such freedom of mind as would enable him to reach an impartial conclusion when he had heard all the evidence in the case.

It is not to be denied that this proper rule has, in many cases, been departed from, and conclusions less well considered adopted in its stead. It has sometimes been held that the mere fact that a juryman had formed an opinion in relation to the merits of the case, would disqualify him, without further inquiry into the nature of that opinion. It has sometimes been maintained that the mere expression of an opinion as to the merits of a case, would disqualify a juror, without reference to the motives or grounds upon which that opinion has been expressed. These rulings, resting upon the theory that there can be no indifference in judgment where there is knowledge, or where an opinion has been expressed, are, it is believed, as incorrect in principle as they are evil in effect.

In modern communities such particulars of every offence as can be ascertained are at once given to the public. The real or supposed facts of a case become at once known, not only to the people of the vicinage, but to everybody. All who read acquire a knowledge of the facts of the pending case, and all who have any knowledge of the facts of the case have some opinion with regard to its merits.

Service upon a jury empanelled to try a prisoner for an offence punishable with death or imprisonment is an unpleasant duty and yet it is a duty, upon the proper discharge of which the safety of society depends. A person summoned to perform duty as a juryman ought to be held to the performance of that duty, if he is in a state of mind which will enable him to weigh and determine fairly the evidence which he may hear. To exclude from the jury-box, in modern times, all who have some knowledge of a case, and who have formed or expressed some opinion as to the facts within their knowledge, without further examining the juror, so as to ascertain whether he be really disqualified by any settled belief or conviction, is to exclude from the panel, if the case be important or notorious, the intelligent freemen of the vicinage. It has a tendency to...