Browning v. State

165 N.E. 566, 120 Ohio St. 62, 120 Ohio St. (N.S.) 62, 7 Ohio Law. Abs. 140, 1929 Ohio LEXIS 397
Ohio Supreme Court·Decided February 20, 1929·No. 21082·Published·Cited by 92 cases

Opinion

Robinson, J.

George K. Browning was indicted for embezzlement, at the January term, 1927, of the court of common pleas of Muskingum county, by a grand jury of nine men and six women summoned and impaneled under authority of Section 13568, General Code. The regular grand jury of Muskingum county was discharged on January 6, 1927, and a “new grand jury” was summoned on January 24, 1927.

Section 13568, General Code, provides: “After the discharge of the grand jury, the court, when necessary, may order the sheriff to call together a new grand jury, from the bystanders or neighboring citizens, of fifteen good and lawful men having the qualifications of grand jurors, who shall be returned and sworn, and proceed in the manner provided by law.” The court ordered that the “sheriff shall call together a new grand jury from the bystanders and neighboring citizens of fifteen good and lawful men and women.”

A motion to quash the indictment was filed by the defendant, which motion was overruled.

This section of the General Code (66 Ohio Laws, 299) was enacted long prior to the adoption of the *64 Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States and Article Y, Section 1, of the Constitution of Ohio, as amended November 6,1923. The same Legislature that enacted Section 13568 enacted Section 12368, General Code: “In the interpretation of part fourth, the words * * * in the masculine gender include the feminine and neuter genders.” Section 13568, General Code, was then and is now included in “part fourth” of the Code. However, we are of opinion that the adoption of Section 12368, General Code, has no significance in the interpretation of the word “men” as used in Section 13568, since the Legislature at the time of the enactment could not have contemplated the inclusion of women in the jury class. At that time the duty of jury service was imposed only upon men, and the words “jury” and “jurors” were understood to contemplate men only, and the Legislature undoubtedly did not then contemplate a jury composed of women, or partly of women.

The Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States prohibited any state from denying to women the right to vote. It did not directly or by inference prohibit the states from imposing jury service on men only. Article Y, Section 1, of the Constitution of Ohio, provides: “Every citizen of the United States, * * * who shall have been a resident of the state one year next preceding the election, and of the county, township or ward, in which he resides, such time as may be provided by law, shall have the qualifications of an elector, .and-be entitled to vote at all elections.” This provision in and of itself neither imposed jury service upon any one nor prohibited the Legislature from impos *65 ing it upon persons of a designated class and exempting persons'of another class therefrom. Neither was adopted for the purpose of imposing jury service upon women. The duty to serve as jurors devolved upon women in Ohio by virtue of the fact that they had become electors, and, under the general provisions of our statutes imposing jury service upon “judicious and discreet persons, having the qualifications of electors,” they fell within the class of persons upon whom the duty had already been imposed, and the imposition of the duty arose, with-' out additional legislation, out of the inclusion of women in the class from which jury service had theretofore been required by statute.

In this connection it may be said of the general statutes defining qualifications of jurors that at the time of enactment they did not require jury service of women, and that it was not, and could not have been, within the contemplation of the Legislature, in the enactment of them, to impose such service upon women; that, on the other hand, it was the purpose of the Legislature at that time to impose jury service upon a class which it in recent years has described as “judicious and discreet persons having the qualifications of electors,” “persons, resident electors,” and always has so described as to designate electors and none others, and, since there were at that time no electors other than men, to impose the duty only upon men.

When, therefore, by the amendment to the federal Constitution and the amendment to the state Constitution, women were afforded the privilege of voting at all elections, they became members of the class which the Legislature had designated as sub *66 jéct to jury service, and, by virtue of tbeir admission to the class, the duty of jury service devolved upon them.

With respect to the provisions of Section 13568, General Code, the Legislature, instead of using the word “electors,” used the word “men”; but it must be kept in mind that, notwithstanding the fact that at the time of the enactment of that section the Legislature undoubtedly did not contemplate requiring jury service of women, the purpose of the enactment of that section was not to provide an additional class from which jury service might be required, but was to provide an additional mode of selection of jurors from the same class. And since the class included, and always had included, electors only, and all electors were men, it used the word ‘-‘men” in the same sense as it had theretofore used a word or Avords indicating electors, arid did not use the Avord-“men” in a specific sense, differentiating between men and women, but in a generic sense, indicating the elector class, upon the members of which jury service had theretofore by statute been imposed.

We find no error in the manner of summoning the “new grand jury.”

In the formation of the new grand jury there was summoned one James Simpson, who served as a grand juror in presenting the indictment here under consideration. A plea in abatement was filed, in which it was alleged that Simpson, on November 14, 1890, was indicted by the grand jury of Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania, in which indictment he was charged, in the first count, Avith making an assault upon one George H. Moore, and beating, *67 wounding, ill-treating, and otherwise wronging him; in the second count, with mating an assault and unlawfully and maliciously inflicting grievous bodily harm upon the said George H. Moore; and, in the third count, with feloniously, willfully, and with malice aforethought striking the said George H. Moore with a club or oak picket, with intent * * * to kill and murder; ’ ’ that the third count of the indictment was nollied and he pleaded guilty to the first and second counts, and was sentenced to serve a term of two years and three months at solitary confinement in the Western Penitentiary of Pennsylvania; and that he never received a general pardon from the governor of Pennsylvania.

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Browning v. State, 165 N.E. 566, 120 Ohio St. 62, 120 Ohio St. (N.S.) 62, 7 Ohio Law. Abs. 140, 1929 Ohio LEXIS 397 (Ohio 1929).

165 N.E. 566 (Browning v. State) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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