Mr. Chief Justice Snyder
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Manuel Figueroa was tried in the Superior Court in 1953 by the court without a jury and convicted on a felony charge of buying personal property knowing it was stolen, in violation of § 438 of the Penal Code,. 1937 ed. He has appealed from the judgment sentencing him to imprisonment of 4 to 6 months. The only assignment is that the trial court erred in permitting one of the attorneys for the defendant to waive the right of the defendant to a trial by jury. The defendant concedes that trial by jury on a felony charge may be waived in this jurisdiction; his theory, however, is that the waiver must be by the defendant personally and not through counsel.
Art. II, § 11, par. 2 of our Constitution provides that the defendant in a felony case “. . . shall have the right of a trial by an impartial jury . . ,”.1 Previously, there was no guaranty in our Organic Acts for trial by jury, either in civil or criminal cases. The matter was left for the Legislature of Puerto Rico to determine. Balzac v. Porto Rico, 258 U.S. 298. The Legislature exercised this power by providing that a defendant shall have the right to trial by jury in felony cases and certain misdemeanors; but if the defend[177]*177ant did not affirmatively elect trial by jury, this right was' waived. Section 178, Code of Criminal Procedure, 1935 ed.2
Article II, § 11, par. 2 converted the previous statutory right to a trial by jury in a felony case into a constitutional right. Informe de la Comisión de Carta de Derechos, XXI Revista Jurídica de la Universidad de Puerto Rico 1, 15-16; Notes and Comments on the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, 42. But the debate in the Constitutional Convention made it crystal clear that par. 2 was not intended to make trial by jury in felony cases mandatory in Puerto Rico. The right to a trial by jury in such cases —although now a constitutional rather than a statutory right — remains as in the past a privilege of the defendant who may waive it. Diario de Sesiones, Convención Constituyente de Puerto Rico, 605; Ramos v. Rivera, 68 P.R.R. 509, 520. The result is that § 178 of the Code of Criminal Procedure is no longer needed to guarantee the right to trial by jury in felony cases. But § 178 remains in effect not only for the purpose of giving a defendant the right of trial by jury in certain misdemeanor cases, but also to provide the method of waiver of the right of trial by jury.
The defendant concedes that in Puerto Rico trial by jury may be waived by the defendant. He argues, however, that the waiver must be by the defendant personally and not through counsel. His theory is predicated (a) on a proposition of constitutional law and (b) on a matter of statutory interpretation. We examine first the constitutional question.
[178]*178f — H
Under Article III, Section 2, clause 3 and the Sixth Amendment of the United States Constitution a defendant is entitled to trial by jury in a criminal case in the Federal Courts. The Supreme Court of the United States has held that these Federal Constitutional provisions do not establish the jury as a part of the frame of government or as a jurisdictional element of a trial court. On the contrary, trial by jury under the Federal Constitution is a privilege of the' defendant, which the latter may waive. Patton v. United States, 281 U.S. 276. See State v. Hernández, 123 P. 2d 387 (N.M., 1942) ; Oppenheim, Waiver of Trial by Jury in Criminal Cases, 25 Mich. L. Rev. 695; Griswold, The Historical Development of Waiver of Jury Trial in Criminal Cases, 20 Va. L. Rev. 655; 30 Col. L. Rev. 1063.3
The Patton case also prescribed the conditions for waiver >of trial by jury. It said at p. 312: “. . . before any waiver •can become effective, the consent of government counsel and the sanction of the Court must be had, in addition to the •express and intelligent consent of the defendant.” Rule 23 •(a) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure restates the method of waiver outlined in the Patton case, with the addition that the waiver must be in writing. See Whitman, Federal Criminal Procedure 167-8, 170.4
[179]*179The defendant contends that the right of trial by jury provided in Article II, § 11, par. 2 of our Constitution may be waived only in the manner established in the Patton case. His reasoning is as follows: Public Law 600, authorizing the people of Puerto Rico to adopt a constitution, provided that it shall contain a bill of rights. 64 Stat. 319, 48 U.S.C.A. § § 731b-731e. This indicated the special interest in a bill of rights. The latter, including the right to a trial by jury in felony cases, was approved by Congress when it accepted the Constitution. According to the defendant, “Therefore, the right to trial by jury exists in Puerto Rico by express provision of the Congress. For this reason, in order for the exercise of the constitutional right to trial by jury in Puerto Rico to be more effective, it must be guaranteed under the same conditions which guarantee this right in the Federal Courts.”
We cannot agree. The defendant has cited no case and we know of none which affirmatively holds that under the Federal Constitution or under Federal Rule 23(a) the defendant must waive a jury personally rather than through [180]*180his counsel.5 But even if we assume that the Federal constitutional or statutory rule requires waiver of the jury by the defendant personally rather than by counsel, the said Federal rule does not inexorably require the same method of waiver in our courts. The defendant argues in effect that the Federal rule govern in our courts on the theory (a) that our Constitution — particularly Article II, embodying the bill of rights, and more particularly, par. 2 of § 11, establishing the right of trial by jury — is a Federal law; and (b) that as a Federal law par. 2 must be construed as incorporating the Federal rule with reference to the method by which a defendant may waive his right to trial by jury. For the reasons hereinafter stated, we reject this argument.
Our Organic Acts were Federal laws. The meaning of their provisions was therefore authoritatively determined by the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and by the Supreme Court of the United States, and not by us. Gallardo v. González, 143 F.2d 947, 949-50 (C.A. 1, 1944); Buscaglia v. District Court of San Juan, 145 F.2d 274 (C.A. 1, 1944); Arroyo v. Puerto Rico Transp. Authority, 164 F. 2d 748 (C.A. 1, 1947); Ballester Hermanos v. Tax Court, 66 P.R.R. 531, 534; footnote 2, reversed on other grounds, Buscaglia v. Ballester, 162 F. 2d 805 (C.A. 1, 1947), cert. denied, 332 U. S. 816. But our Constitution stands on a different footing. This has been pointed out by the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. In Mora v. Mejías, 206 F.2d 377 (C.A. 1, 1953), Chief Judge Magruder, speaking for the court, said at p.
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Mr. Chief Justice Snyder
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Manuel Figueroa was tried in the Superior Court in 1953 by the court without a jury and convicted on a felony charge of buying personal property knowing it was stolen, in violation of § 438 of the Penal Code,. 1937 ed. He has appealed from the judgment sentencing him to imprisonment of 4 to 6 months. The only assignment is that the trial court erred in permitting one of the attorneys for the defendant to waive the right of the defendant to a trial by jury. The defendant concedes that trial by jury on a felony charge may be waived in this jurisdiction; his theory, however, is that the waiver must be by the defendant personally and not through counsel.
Art. II, § 11, par. 2 of our Constitution provides that the defendant in a felony case “. . . shall have the right of a trial by an impartial jury . . ,”.1 Previously, there was no guaranty in our Organic Acts for trial by jury, either in civil or criminal cases. The matter was left for the Legislature of Puerto Rico to determine. Balzac v. Porto Rico, 258 U.S. 298. The Legislature exercised this power by providing that a defendant shall have the right to trial by jury in felony cases and certain misdemeanors; but if the defend[177]*177ant did not affirmatively elect trial by jury, this right was' waived. Section 178, Code of Criminal Procedure, 1935 ed.2
Article II, § 11, par. 2 converted the previous statutory right to a trial by jury in a felony case into a constitutional right. Informe de la Comisión de Carta de Derechos, XXI Revista Jurídica de la Universidad de Puerto Rico 1, 15-16; Notes and Comments on the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, 42. But the debate in the Constitutional Convention made it crystal clear that par. 2 was not intended to make trial by jury in felony cases mandatory in Puerto Rico. The right to a trial by jury in such cases —although now a constitutional rather than a statutory right — remains as in the past a privilege of the defendant who may waive it. Diario de Sesiones, Convención Constituyente de Puerto Rico, 605; Ramos v. Rivera, 68 P.R.R. 509, 520. The result is that § 178 of the Code of Criminal Procedure is no longer needed to guarantee the right to trial by jury in felony cases. But § 178 remains in effect not only for the purpose of giving a defendant the right of trial by jury in certain misdemeanor cases, but also to provide the method of waiver of the right of trial by jury.
The defendant concedes that in Puerto Rico trial by jury may be waived by the defendant. He argues, however, that the waiver must be by the defendant personally and not through counsel. His theory is predicated (a) on a proposition of constitutional law and (b) on a matter of statutory interpretation. We examine first the constitutional question.
[178]*178f — H
Under Article III, Section 2, clause 3 and the Sixth Amendment of the United States Constitution a defendant is entitled to trial by jury in a criminal case in the Federal Courts. The Supreme Court of the United States has held that these Federal Constitutional provisions do not establish the jury as a part of the frame of government or as a jurisdictional element of a trial court. On the contrary, trial by jury under the Federal Constitution is a privilege of the' defendant, which the latter may waive. Patton v. United States, 281 U.S. 276. See State v. Hernández, 123 P. 2d 387 (N.M., 1942) ; Oppenheim, Waiver of Trial by Jury in Criminal Cases, 25 Mich. L. Rev. 695; Griswold, The Historical Development of Waiver of Jury Trial in Criminal Cases, 20 Va. L. Rev. 655; 30 Col. L. Rev. 1063.3
The Patton case also prescribed the conditions for waiver >of trial by jury. It said at p. 312: “. . . before any waiver •can become effective, the consent of government counsel and the sanction of the Court must be had, in addition to the •express and intelligent consent of the defendant.” Rule 23 •(a) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure restates the method of waiver outlined in the Patton case, with the addition that the waiver must be in writing. See Whitman, Federal Criminal Procedure 167-8, 170.4
[179]*179The defendant contends that the right of trial by jury provided in Article II, § 11, par. 2 of our Constitution may be waived only in the manner established in the Patton case. His reasoning is as follows: Public Law 600, authorizing the people of Puerto Rico to adopt a constitution, provided that it shall contain a bill of rights. 64 Stat. 319, 48 U.S.C.A. § § 731b-731e. This indicated the special interest in a bill of rights. The latter, including the right to a trial by jury in felony cases, was approved by Congress when it accepted the Constitution. According to the defendant, “Therefore, the right to trial by jury exists in Puerto Rico by express provision of the Congress. For this reason, in order for the exercise of the constitutional right to trial by jury in Puerto Rico to be more effective, it must be guaranteed under the same conditions which guarantee this right in the Federal Courts.”
We cannot agree. The defendant has cited no case and we know of none which affirmatively holds that under the Federal Constitution or under Federal Rule 23(a) the defendant must waive a jury personally rather than through [180]*180his counsel.5 But even if we assume that the Federal constitutional or statutory rule requires waiver of the jury by the defendant personally rather than by counsel, the said Federal rule does not inexorably require the same method of waiver in our courts. The defendant argues in effect that the Federal rule govern in our courts on the theory (a) that our Constitution — particularly Article II, embodying the bill of rights, and more particularly, par. 2 of § 11, establishing the right of trial by jury — is a Federal law; and (b) that as a Federal law par. 2 must be construed as incorporating the Federal rule with reference to the method by which a defendant may waive his right to trial by jury. For the reasons hereinafter stated, we reject this argument.
Our Organic Acts were Federal laws. The meaning of their provisions was therefore authoritatively determined by the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and by the Supreme Court of the United States, and not by us. Gallardo v. González, 143 F.2d 947, 949-50 (C.A. 1, 1944); Buscaglia v. District Court of San Juan, 145 F.2d 274 (C.A. 1, 1944); Arroyo v. Puerto Rico Transp. Authority, 164 F. 2d 748 (C.A. 1, 1947); Ballester Hermanos v. Tax Court, 66 P.R.R. 531, 534; footnote 2, reversed on other grounds, Buscaglia v. Ballester, 162 F. 2d 805 (C.A. 1, 1947), cert. denied, 332 U. S. 816. But our Constitution stands on a different footing. This has been pointed out by the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. In Mora v. Mejías, 206 F.2d 377 (C.A. 1, 1953), Chief Judge Magruder, speaking for the court, said at p. 382 that “...the Constitution of the Commonwealth [181]*181of Puerto Rico contains a due process clause, which will be authoritatively interpreted and applied by the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico as a matter of local law ” (Italics ours).
Under the terms of Public Law 600 the Constitution could not go into effect until acceptance thereof by Congress. And Congress gave its acceptance under certain conditions, which the people of Puerto Rico thereafter approved. Public Law 447, 66 Stat. 327, 48 U.S.C.A. Cum. Pocket Part, § 731 d note. But this does not militate. against our conclusion that the Constitution is a local basic charter of government and not a federal law. Under Art. IV, § 3 of the United States Constitution, providing that the power to admit new states is vested in Congress, the latter has in the past attached conditions to the admission of States into the Union in some instances constitutions of states have not gone into effect until approved by Congress. Permoli v. Municipality No. 1 of the City of New Orleans, 3 How. 588, 11 L.ed. 739 (1845); Coyle v. Oklahoma, 221 U.S. 559; Willoughby on The Constitution of the United States 403-6; Rottschaefer on The Constitutional Lato 119; Statement of Hon. Luis Muñoz Marín, Governor of Puerto Rico, Hearing-before the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, United [182]*182States Senate, 1950, p. 9; 98 Cong. Rec.6188.6 Nevertheless, the Supreme- Court of the United States has uniformly held that the meaning of the provisions of state constitutions and statutes is for the state courts to determine. A.F. of L. v. Watson, 327 U.S. 582, 596; Rescue Army v. Municipal Court, 331 U.S. 549; Spector Motor Co. v. McLaughlin, 323 U. S. 101; Federation of Labor v. McAdory, 325 U.S. 450; People v. Romero, 71 P.R.R. 62, 65, and cases cited; Rotts-chaeffer, supra, 116. In the same way, as indicated by our Court of Appeals in the Mora case, the meaning of the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico is fixed by this Court.
The Constitution was approved by the elected representatives of the people of Puerto Rico sitting in Constitutional Convention. This occurred after detailed consideration of each clause in committee and in debate on the floor of the Convention. Finally, the people themselves voiced their approval at the polls. The committee reports and the debates [183]*183on the floor — in addition to the text itself — are the primary sources in the task of determining the meaning of particular provisions of the Constitution. See González v. Superior Court, 75 P.R.R. 550; The People of Puerto Rico v. Superior Court, 75 P.R.R. 501; People v. Quiñones, 76 P.R.R. 894. Under those circumstances it is impossible to believe that the Constitution — a product of local draftsmanship and debate — is in legal effect a Federal law the meaning of which must be definitively established by the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit or by the Supreme Court of the United States, and not by us.
In Law 600 Congress said “That, fully recognizing the principle of government by consent, this Act is now adopted in the nature of a compact so that the people of Puerto Rico may organize a government pursuant to a constitution of their oiun adoption”. (Italics ours). The people of Puerto Rico accepted this offer. They adopted their own Constitution. In the preamble thereof they stated that “We, the people of Puerto Rico.. .do ordain and establish this Constitution for the commonwealth which, in the exercise of our natural rights, we now create within our union with the United States of America.” (Italics ours). The subsequent role of Congress did not result in making the Constitution a Federal law. Rather “. . . pursuant to congressional authority. . . [the Constitution] was approved by the people and accepted by Congress in 1952.” Clark and Rogers, The New Judiciary Act of Puerto Rico: A Definitive Court Reorganization, 61 Yale L. J. 1147 (Italics ours). It follows that our Constitution is a local Constitution and not a Federal law. See Mora v. Mejías, 115 F. Supp. 610, 612 (U.S. Dist. Ct.P.R. 1953). Cf. Mora v. Torres, 113 F. Supp. 309 (U.S. [184]*184Dist.Ct.,P.R., 1953), affirmed in Mora v. Mejías, supra, 386-8.
Our conclusion is reinforced by Article VII which establishes the procedure for amending the Constitution. For a time the fate of the Constitution was jeopardized by a proposal that Congress accept the Constitution on condition that .amendments thereto be subject to its approval. When Law 600 and the Constitution were before Congress, their proponents made it clear that a requirement that amendments to the Constitution must be approved by Congress would not be acceptable to them. Statement of Honorable Luis Muñoz Marín, Governor of Puerto Rico, Hearing before the Committee on Public Lands, 81st Cong., on H.R. 7674, Serial Mo. 26 (1950), pp. 8, 11, 14, 17; Honorable Antonio Fernós Isern, Resident Commissioner of Puerto Rico, The Significance of the Reform, Lecture at Princeton University, 1948, p. 9; 98 Cong. Rec. pp. 6187, 6200, 7979-83; Muñoz Amato, Congressional Conservatism and Puerto Rican Democracy in the Commonwealth Relationship, XXI Revista Jurídica de la Universidad de Puerto Rico 321, 324-6, 285 The Annals 23, 25-6. After considerable debate, Congress rejected a provision calling for such Congressional approval. Conference Report No. 2350, House of Representatives, 82d Congress, 2d session, to accompany H. J. Res. 430, Public Law 447. Consequently, under Article VII, except for restrictions embodied in Law 447 not relevant here, amendments [185]*185of the Constitution go into effect without submission thereof to Congress.6b
If the Constitution had provided that amendments thereto were subject to the approval of Congress, it would not really be a constitution, as Congress says it is, 66 Stat. 327; it would be just another Organic Act approved and enacted by Congress. See Mora v. Mejías, supra, 387. The Second Vice President of the Constitutional Convention has characterized the provision in Article VII that the right to amend the Constitution is vested exclusively in the people of Puerto Rico as “. . . the heart of Commonwealth status.” He has pointed out that a requirement for approval of amendments by Congress “. . . would have reduced the people of Puerto Rico to the role of a drafting agency for Congress.” Gutiérrez Franqui and Wells, The Commonwealth Constitution, 285 The Annals 33, 40.7
Under Article VII the people of Puerto Rico may make drastic changes in the Constitution without submission thereof to Congress. They could, for example, modify or [186]*186even eliminate the right to trial by jury.8 And it could scarcely be contended that such an amendment was a Federal law. By the same token, the original provisions of the Constitution — including par. 2 of § 11 of Article II — are and must be treated as a local Constitution and not merely just another Federal law applicable to Puerto Rico.9
The fact that questions of local law, including the meaning of provisions of our Constitution, may be raised on appeal from this Court to the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit does not affect our conclusion. Even under the Organic Act our interpretation of local statutes was authoritative unless it was “inescapably wrong.” De Castro v. Board of Comm’rs., 322 U.S. 451; Bonet v. Texas Co., 308 U.S. 463, 471; Romero v. People of Puerto Rico, 182 F.2d 864 (C.A. 1, 1950); Cruzado v. People of Puerto Rico, 210 F.2d 789 (C.A. 1, 1954) ; People v. Romero, supra. Consequently, review by the Court of Appeals in such cases, according to Chief Judge Magruder, . . has come to be pretty mucn of a dead letter.” Magruder, supra, p. 19. Obviously, there are even greater reasons why the meaning of the provisions of our Constitution must be fixed by this Court, and not by the Federal courts.10
[187]*187. For the reasons stated, we hold' that Art. II, § 11, par. 2 of our Constitution is not a Federal Law. Rather it is a provision of the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico the meaning of which must be settled by this Court. We assume that the Patton case requires a defendant to waive a jury personally in the Federal courts. But the Constitutional Convention did not incorporate this requirement in par. 2. Instead it left the manner of exercise of the waiver to the Legislature. And the latter has not amended § 178 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the statute covering' this question. The problem is therefore reduced to determining whether § 178 requires a defendant to waive a jury personally.11
[188]*188II
We now turn to the contention of the appellant that under § 178 of the Code of Criminal Procedure a defendant must waive trial by jury personally rather than through counsel. He argues that § 5 of the Code of Criminal Procedure — copied from § 684 of the California Penal Code — requires this result in view of its language and in view of the California cases holding that the parties to a criminal case are the People and the defendant and that the latter dpes not include counsel for the defendant.12 The defendant also relies on California cases holding that trial by jury in a criminal case must be waived by the defendant personally.
There are, however, several differences between our situation and that obtaining in California. In the first place, there were two stages in the development of this question in California. Prior to 1927 under Article 1, § 7 of the California Constitution a trial by jury could be waived only in misdemeanor cases “by the consent of both parties.” 13 It was held under this provision that neither the defendant nor his counsel could waive the right to a trial by jury in a felony case. Ex parte Bracklis, 198 Pac. 659 (Cal., 1921); People v. Nakis, 193 Pac. 92 (Cal., 1920). But the appellant has cited no case and we have found none which actually holds that prior to 1927 trial by jury could not be waived under Article 1, § 7'of the Constitution through counsel in a misdemeanor case. Cf. Goodman v. Superior [189]*189Court, 96 Pac. 395 (Cal., 1908); In re Fife, 42 Pac. 299 (Cal., 1895); Ex parte Wong Yon Ting, 39 Pac. 627 (Cal., 1895); Taylor v. Reynolds, Judge, 28 Pac. 688 (Cal., 1891); Powelson v. Lockwood, 23 Pac. 143 (Cal., 1890); In re Miller, 22 Pac. 1113 (Cal., 1890); 15 Cal.Jur. 345; 8 Cal. Jur. 666; 7 Cal. Jur., Ten Year Supp., 1945 Revision, 423-4; 14 So. Calif. L. Rev. 473.14 It would therefore appear that, prior to 1927, $ 684 of the California Penal Code — equivalent to § 5 of our Code of Criminal Procedure — did not have the importance attributed to it by the defendant with reference to waiver of trial by jury.
However, putting to one side the question of whether, prior to 1927, a defendant was required to waive a jury personally in misdemeanor cases, the situation in California after 1927 is more relevant to the problem before us. In that year the California Constitution was amended to provide in part that "... A trial by jury may be waived in all criminal cases, by the consent of both parties, expressed in open court by the defendant and his counsel, and in civil actions by the consent of the parties, signified in such manner as may be prescribed by law.” (Italics ours.) For our purposes this was much more specific than the earlier clause and made it quite clear that the defendant personally, as well as his counsel, must waive the jury in a criminal case. And the cases decided under the 1927 amendment — which are the cases relied on here by the appellant — have uniformly so held. People v. Washington, 213 P.2d 70 (Cal., 1949); People v. Walker, 201 P.2d 6, 16 (Cal., 1948); People v. Pughsley, 168 P.2d 27 (Cal., 1946); People v. Voice, 157 [190]*190P.2d 436 (Cal., 1945); People v. Bastio, 131 P.2d 614 (Cal., 1942); People v. Noland, 86 P.2d 363 (Cal., 1939); People v. Medina, 49 P.2d 332 (Cal., 1935); People v. Pincus, 21 P.2d 964 (Cal., 1933); People v. Rumsey, 15 P.2d 780 (Cal., 1932); People v. Woods, 14 P.2d 313 (Cal., 1932); People v. Spinato, supra; People v. Wilkerson, 278 Pac. 466 (Cal., 1929); People v.García, supra; 14 So.Calif.L.Rev. 473, 474.
In Puerto Rico we have no specific constitutional provision as now exists in California requiring the defendant to waive a jury personally. Here the situation is quite different. Our Constitution is silent as to waiver. Moreover, § 178 — our only statute dealing specifically with this subject — is unlike § 1042 of the California Penal Code, which requires an affirmative waiver. On the contrary, under <§ 178 trial by jury must be affirmatively elected or else it is waived. People v. Campos, 69 P.R.R. 837, 841. We therefore fail to see how in Puerto Rico § 5 can be read as injecting into § 178 a requirement that some “action” must be taken by the defendant personally in order for a jury to be validly waived. Section 178 provides in effect that silence at the arraignment constitutes a waiver of trial by jury. It would seem absurd to say that such “silence” must be that of the defendant rather than of his counsel. It follows that there is nothing in § § 178 and 5 which makes waiver by counsel insufficient and requires an affirmative waiverHoy the defendant personally of his right to a trial by jury. Territory v. Van Dalden, 33 Haw. 113, 131 (1934); see Shores Co. v. Iowa Chemical Co., 268 N.W. 581 (Iowa, 1936).15
[191]*191The appellant argues that in view of the elevation of trial by jury in a criminal case to the status of a constitutional right, we should hold that it may be waived only by some affirmative action of the defendant. But statutes similar to § 178 — providing that failure to elect a jury constitutes waiver thereof — have been sustained in states where trial by jury is a constitutional right. A.L.I. Code of Criminal Procedure, Commentary, 807, 809; 50 C.J.S. 819, cases cited in footnote 92; State v. Berg, 21 N.W.2d 777 (Iowa, 1946); see Orfield, supra, pp. 890-5. In the same way, the Federal Constitution establishes the right to trial by jury in civil cases; yet Rule 38(d) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure provides that a jury trial is waived unless demanded. 5 Moore’s Federal Practice, 2d ed., pp. 105, 332-3. The short of the matter is that the Legislative Assembly is free to make its own determination on this .question. And it has left unamended the provision in § 178 that the failure to elect a jury constitutes waiver thereof.
In Jiménez v. Warden, 74 P.R.R. 240, we held that a sentence predicated on a plea of guilty entered by counsel rather than by the defendant personally was void. But we were compelled to reach this conclusion because of the clear and mandatory language of § 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure that “A plea of guilty can be entered only by the defendant himself in open court, unless upon information against a corporation, in which case it may be put in by counsel.” (Italics ours). In our opinion in the Jiménez case we pointed out that the Federal courts have rejected this rule as based on an outmoded formalism which has no [192]*192relation to substantial justice. In subsequent cases—People v. Cruzado, 74 P.R.R. 872, and People v. Vargas, 74 P.R.R. 134, affirmed in 210 F.2d 789 (C.A. 1, 1954) — we made it clear that in the absence of an express statutory provision similar to § 164, the action of the defendant through his counsel would ordinarily be binding. Unlike § 164, the terms of § § 178 and 5 do not compel us to reach in the present case the obsolete and unrealistic result required by § 164 in the Jiménez case.
In People v. Vargas, supra, and People v. Cruzado, supra, it was held that since the act of an attorney generally binds his client, counsel for a defendant may waive the right of the defendant to be confronted with the witnesses against him without the express consent of the defendant. The defendant, through his counsel, having taken this course of conduct in the hope that it would help him, cannot thereafter repudiate it.16 By the same token, under § 178 the election of trial by court rather than trial by jury may be validly made by counsel for the defendant.
The judgment of the Superior Court will be affirmed.
Mr. Justice Negrón Fernández dissents in the result but agrees as to the first part of the opinion.
What is a Constitution? It is a constituent act of people who have freely determined to organize themselves into a body politic and to prescribe for themselves a basic framework of self-government. That is just what the people of Puerto Rico have done, under authority of Pub. L.600.” Magruder, The Commonwealth Status of Puerto Rico, 15 U. of Pitt. L. Rev. 1, 14. Article I of the Constitution, which Congress accepted, declares: “The Commonwealth of Puerto Rico is hereby constituted. Its political power emanates from the people and shall be exercised in accordance with their will, within the terms of the compact agreed upon between the people of Puerto Rico and the United States of America ’’