Healy v. People

52 N.E. 426, 177 Ill. 306, 1898 Ill. LEXIS 3198
CourtIllinois Supreme Court
DecidedDecember 21, 1898
StatusPublished
Cited by29 cases

This text of 52 N.E. 426 (Healy v. People) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Illinois Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Healy v. People, 52 N.E. 426, 177 Ill. 306, 1898 Ill. LEXIS 3198 (Ill. 1898).

Opinion

Mr. Justice Boggs

delivered the opinion of the court:

At the July term, 1897, of the criminal court of Cook county the plaintiffs in error were convicted of the crime of manslaughter. This is a writ of error sued out to review the judgment of conviction.

On the 12th day of July, 1897, the plaintiff in error Moran presented a petition to the said criminal court of said Cook county, setting forth that in default of bail he was then confined in the common jail of said county to answer said charge; that he had been so confined in such jail continuously from and including the 17th day of February, 1897; that he had not been tried at any term of court commencing within four months of the date of his commitment to the said jail, and that the delay in placing him upon trial for said alleged criminal offense had not happened upon the application of the petitioner. The petition was verified by the affidavit of said plaintiff in error.

The statute upon which the petition is based is as follows: “Any person committed for a criminal or supposed criminal offense and not admitted to bail, and not tried at some term of the court having jurisdiction of the offense, commencing within four months of the date of commitment, * * * shall be set at liberty by the court, unless the delay shall happen on the application of the prisoner, or unless the court is satisfied that due exertion has been made to procure the evidence on the part of the People, and that there is reasonable grounds to believe that such evidence may be procured at the next term, in which case the court may continue^the case to the next term.” (Starr & Curtis, 1896, chap. 38, par. 623, sec. 18.)

It is assigned as for error the court denied the prayer of the petition.

The statutes provide a term of the criminal court of Cook county shall be begun and holden on the first Monday of every month. (Rev. Stat. chap. 37, par. 53, p. 334.) Four terms of said court, viz., March, April, May and June, had intervened between the date of the commitment of the plaintiff in error Moran to the common jail, and the July term, to which the petition for discharge •was presented. The June term, however, “commenced within four months of the date of commitment,” and the statute does not purport to affect the power of the court to detain and try the plaintiff in error at any time during that term, though beyond the said period of four months. It appears from the record the cause against Moran and his co-defendant was set for hearing on the 28th day of June, 1897, being one of the judicial dajm of said June term, during which it was lawful to detain and try him, and that on that day the cause was, by consent of all the parties thereto and without objection on the part of any one, re-set, by agreement, to be tried on the 6th day of July, 1897. The statute, the benefit of which plaintiff in error invokes, is not operative if “the delay shall happen on the application of the prisoner.” All the parties to the cause consented the case should not be heard on the 28th day of June, and agreed that the trial should be postponed and the cause re-set for trial on the 6th day of July. An order of the court was, however, necessary to make the agreement effective. In order to secure the approval of the» court the agreement and desire of the parties must have been in some manner manifested to the court,—that is, the court must have been applied to, to sanction the postponement and re-setting of the case. Delay thus occasioned must be deemed to have “happened on the application” of each and all of the parties to the proceeding. On the 6th day of July the cause was again continued, by agreement of all the parties, to July 12, 1897, and re-set for trial on the last named day. On the 12th day of July the plaintiff in error filed the petition for an order setting him at liberty. The prayer of the petition was properly denied.

On the 12th day of July, being one of the judicial days of the July term of said court, a challenge was presented to the array or regular panel of petit jurors, and such challenge was sustained. The court thereupon, upon its own motion, over the protest, objection and exception of both the plaintiffs in error, ordered that a special venire issue commanding that one hundred good and lawful men be summoned from the body of the county of Cook to serve as petit jurors on the trial of the cause, and on the motion of the State’s attorney, over the objection of the plaintiffs in error, the court appointed one Frank G. Jackson a special bailiff to serve the venire, to which the plaintiffs in error also excepted. The venire was made returnable on the 14th day of the same month, on which day it was returned as having been duly executed. Counsel for plaintiffs in error entered a challenge to the array of jurors thus summoned, on the ground, among others, they were ordered, selected and summoned without authority of law. The challenge was overruled, and the plaintiffs in error preserved exceptions to such ruling. The parties were required to proceed to the selection of the jury for the trial of the cause out of the persons so summoned by said special bailiff by virtue of the special venire, to all of which the plaintiffs in error objected and entered exceptions. A jury not being obtained from the persons in attendance under the command of the said venire, on the motion of the State’s attorney other venires were ordered to be issued, and were issued, commanding that other designated numbers of persons be summoned from the body of the county, until, in all, seven venires had been issued and served. Each of these venires was ordered to be served by the said special bailiff, Prank G. Jackson. At all stages of these proceedings to procure the jury by summoning persons from the body of the county by the said special bailiff, acting under the authority of the venires issued by the court, the plaintiffs in error presented their objections to the court and challenges to the array, and, such objections and challenges being overruled, preserved exceptions thereto. Plaintiffs in error were required by the court, over their objections and exceptions, to proceed with the selection of a jury until a jury was obtained. The cause was heard by the jury, and a verdict returned finding plaintiffs in error guilty of manslaughter, and fixing their punishment at imprisonment in the penitentiary for a term of four years each.

We think the court erred in requiring the plaintiffs in error to submit their case to a panel of jurors to be selected from the persons brought into the court by the venires. When the challenge to the regular panel of jurors was sustained and the panel quashed, the necessity still existed for the attendance of a jury, to the end the court might jaroceed to dispose of the causes pending on the docket for hearing.

The duty and power of a court of general jurisdiction, when a challenge to the array or regular panel has been sustained and the panel discharged, has received the attention of this court in other cases. In Stone v. People, 2 Scam. 326, it was declared the court, in such exigency, possessed ample power to command the attendance of the requisite number of jurors for the trial and disposition of. cases remaining upon the docket for decision, and expressly stated “that if it (the power) was not sufficiently conferred by statute it did exist at common law.” In Lincoln v. Stowell, 73 Ill.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
52 N.E. 426, 177 Ill. 306, 1898 Ill. LEXIS 3198, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/healy-v-people-ill-1898.