Dreyer v. Illinois

187 U.S. 71, 23 S. Ct. 28, 47 L. Ed. 79, 1902 U.S. LEXIS 832
CourtSupreme Court of the United States
DecidedNovember 10, 1902
Docket37
StatusPublished
Cited by269 cases

This text of 187 U.S. 71 (Dreyer v. Illinois) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of the United States primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Dreyer v. Illinois, 187 U.S. 71, 23 S. Ct. 28, 47 L. Ed. 79, 1902 U.S. LEXIS 832 (1902).

Opinion

MR. Justice Harlan,

after stating the facts as above reported, delivered the opinion of the court.

It is contended that the judgment of- the Supreme Court of Illinois, affirming the judgment in the present case of the Criminal Court of Cook County, in that State, denied to the plaintiff in error certain rights sectured to him by the Constitution of the United States, particularly by the clause of the Fourteenth Amendment forbidding a State to deprive any person of liberty without due process of law.

The defendant insists that three questions, involving rights secured by the Constitution of the United States, are presented by the assignments of error.

1. The first of those questions, as stated by his counsel, relates to the alleged omission to swear the baliffs in the manner prescribed by the common law and the statutes of the State of Illinois before the jury retired to consider of their verdict.” This point will be first examined.

The Criminal Code of Illinois provides: When the jury retire to consider of their verdict in any criminal case, a constable or other officer shall be sworn or affirmed to attend th'e jury to some private and convenient place, and to the best of his ability keep them together without meat or drink (water excepted),- unless by leave of the court, until they shall have agreed upon their verdict, nor suffer others to speak to them, and that when they shall have agreed upon their verdict he will return them into court:' Provided, In cases of misdemeanor only, if the prosecutor for the people and the person on.trial by himself or counsel, shall agree, which agreement shall be entered, upon the minutes of the court, to dispense with the-attendance of an officer upon- the jury, or that the jury, when they have agreed upon their verdict, may write and seal the same, and after delivering the same to the clerk, may separate, it shall be lawful for the court to carry into effect any such agreement, and receive any such verdict so delivered to the clerk as the *76 lawful verdict of such jury.” Hurd’s Rev. Stat. Ill. 1901, p. 660, § 435.

Referring to this section the Supreme Court, in the present-case, said that it was reversible error in a trial for a felony to allow the jury to retire for the purpose of considering their verdict without being placed in charge of a sworn officer as required by the statute —citing McIntyre v. People, 38 Illinois, 514, 518; Lewis v. People, 44 Illinois, 452, 454; Sanders v. People, 124 Illinois, 218, and Farley v. People, 138 Illinois, 97. In Lewis v. People, just cited, the court observed that the provisions of the above section “ show the great care and solicitude of the General Assembly to secure to every person a fair and impartial trial; and it is eminently proper, as in many cases the accused is imprisoned, and it is not in his power to protect his rights from being prejudiced by undue influences. It should ever be the care of courts of justice to guard human life and liberty against being sacrificed by public prejudice or excitement. The jury should be entirely free from all outside influences from the time they are-empaneled until they return, their verdict and it is accepted and they discharged ; and the legislature have determined that the provisions of this statute are necessary to accomplish the object. It is a provision easily complied with, and one member of the court, at least, has never in practice seen it dispensed with, except in cases of misdemeanor. The provisions of the statute are clear, explicit and peremptory. "We know of no power short of its repeal, to dispense with this requirement.”

But the court further said: “ The point of controversy in the present case is not, however, whether it is reversible error to fail to comply with the statute, but whether the question is properly raised upon this record. No objection or exception was taken by the defendant, at the time of the retirement of the jury, that the officers in charge of it were not sworn, but the question was raised by him for the first time on his motion for new trial, one of the grounds of that 'motion being ‘ that when the jury retired to consider of their verdict in said case no constable or other officer was sworn or affirmed to attend the jury, in manner and form as provided by the statute of the State of Illinois.’ . . . Affidavits made by the bailiffs them *77 selves, and by an assistant of the prosecuting attorney, who participated in the trial, tend to prove that the oath administered was in the statutory form; but these affidavits also show that the only oath administered: to them was on the 21st day of February, immediately after the empaneling and swearing of the jury,. It is shown by the bill of exceptions that the trial was not concluded and the jury finally sent out until February 28th, so that even by the proof made on behalf of the people the only oath taken by the bailiffs was some six days prior to their retirement with the jury, and prior to the introduction of evidence and the subsequent steps of the trial. This cannot be held to be a compliance with the requirement of the statute that ‘ when the jury shall retire to consider of their verdict,’ etc., a constable or other officer shall be sworn,’ etc. To swear the bailiffs immediately upon the jury being sworn, and prior to the introduction of the evidence, the arguments of counsel and instructions of the court — six or. seven days prior to the retirement of the jury to consider of their verdict — would be little less than farcical.”

It was, however, held, that under the principles established by former decisions in Illinois, the requirement of the statute could be waived by the accused, and that his failure to object at the time that the officer having charge of the jury was not sworn when the jury retired was equivalent to a waiver of compliance with its provisions. And it was adjudged “ that the question whether or not, upon the retirement of the jury to consider of its verdict, it was placed in charge of a constable, or other officer, sworn to attend it, as prescribed by statute, is not properly raised by the record [of this case] and therefore [is] not available as error in this court.”

It thus appears that while the state court expressly recognized the rights of the accused under the statute it adjudged that he had not properly raised on the record the question raised for the first time oh motion for a new trial as to noncompliance with its provisions. But manifestly this decision presents no question of a Federal nature. A ruling to the effect that the accused shall be deemed to have waived compliance with the statute if the record does not show that he *78 objected at the time to the action of the court, was an adjudication simply of a question of criminal practice and local law, was not in derogation of the substantial right recognized by the statute, and did not impair the constitutional guaranty that no State shall deprive any person of liberty without due process of- law.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
187 U.S. 71, 23 S. Ct. 28, 47 L. Ed. 79, 1902 U.S. LEXIS 832, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/dreyer-v-illinois-scotus-1902.