People v. Stamey

29 N.E.2d 110, 306 Ill. App. 477, 1940 Ill. App. LEXIS 874
CourtAppellate Court of Illinois
DecidedJuly 25, 1940
DocketGen. No. 9,233
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 29 N.E.2d 110 (People v. Stamey) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Court of Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
People v. Stamey, 29 N.E.2d 110, 306 Ill. App. 477, 1940 Ill. App. LEXIS 874 (Ill. Ct. App. 1940).

Opinion

Mr. Presiding Justice Riess

delivered the opinion of the court.

Plaintiff in error, Grant Stamey, seeks to review and reverse a judgment of conviction entered against him on the 25th day of September, A. D., 1939, in the county court of Champaign county, Illinois, after trial by a jury upon an information filed on April 13, 1939, by the State’s Attorney of said county charging said Stamey with gaming in violation of the provisions of sec. 1, para. 412, of the Criminal Code, being ch. 38 of Ill. Rev. Stat., 1939 [Jones Ill. Stats. Ann. 37.360], prohibiting the sale of lottery “policies” or tickets.

Numerous errors were assigned, the principal of which related to alleged failure to substantially comply with statutory requirements concerning the preparation of jury lists and of ordering, selecting and summoning veniremen to serve upon the petit jury panel, some of which objections were raised in the trial court by defendant’s motions to challenge the array and tales-men and to quash the venires and jury panel, which motions were overruled by the court. Further assignments of error concerned the admission of alleged incompetent and prejudicial testimony and the giving and refusal of certain instructions.

From the original and additional abstracts and record herein, it appears that on August 9,1939, the clerk of said court, pursuant to an order entered on said date, caused to be drawn from the jury box a venire of thirty jurymen who were duly summoned to appear for impanelment and service in said court on September 6, 1939, when the above tiause and certain other cases were set for trial. Twenty-seven of the men appeared in open court on that morning, of whom thirteen were excused from service on the regular panel for good cause shown. The court ordered the sheriff of Champaign county to summon ten additional jurors from the body of the county, who were forthwith called and appeared in court. This procedure was objected to by oral motion of plaintiff in error’s counsel, and the names of eighteen additional jurymen were forthwith ordered by the court to be drawn from the jury box to complete the regular panel of twenty-four jurors and were so duly drawn and summoned to appear for duty at nine o’clock on the following morning. Defendant’s motion to quash was thereupon denied, and the case, which had not been called for trial, was also set down for hearing on the following morning.

The original venire of thirty jurors, of whom twenty-seven appeared and thirteen were excused, together with the additional venire of eighteen jurymen so drawn from the jury box to complete the panel were names of men who had been duly selected and placed upon the jury list of 10 per cent of the legal voters of said county by the board of supervisors thereof at their annual meeting in September, 1937. Defendant contends that no additional list was made in September, 1938, or subsequent thereto by the board of supervisors. On the morning of September 7, 1939, when the case was called for trial, the ten talesmen called from the body of the county were excused, defendant’s oral motions to challenge the array and quash the panels were renewed and again overruled. The jury was selected from veniremen whose names had been so drawn out of the jury box, said jury was impanelled, the cause tried, a verdict of guilty returned against the defendant, his respective motions for a new trial and for parole on probation were denied by the trial court, judgment of conviction on the verdict and sentence duly followed, and the cause comes to this court for review upon writ of error.

It is objected that twenty-four jurors from the regular panel were not present and impanelled in open court on the evening of September 6, 1939, when the jury was partially impanelled and the ten talesmen who were called by the sheriff from the body of the county by order of the court were present in court, the remainder from which the regular panel was so completed not appearing in open court until the following morning.

It is provided in substance by sec. 12 of ch. 78, Ill. Rev. Stat. 1939 [Jones Ill. Stats. Ann. 107.235], that the judge shall examine the jurors who appear and if more than twenty-four qualified petit jurors not subject to exemption shall appear and remain after all excuses are allowed, the court shall discharge by lot the number in excess of twenty-four and that “if for any reason the panel of petit jurors shall not be full at any time the clerk of such court may again repair to the office of the county clerk and draw in the same manner as at the first drawing, such number of jurors as the court shall direct, to fill such panel, who shall be summoned in the same manner as the others, and if necessary, jurors may continue to be so drawn and summoned from time to time until the panel is filled.” The above section further provides that in case a jury is required in any trial before the panel is filled as above provided, the court shall direct the sheriff to summon from the bystanders or from the body of the county a sufficient number of persons having the qualifications of jurors to fill the panel in order that a jury to try such cause may be drawn therefrom.

Before passing upon defendant’s oral motions on September 6th, the court had duly ordered the clerk to draw the additional names to complete the regular panel of twenty-four from the jury box to appear for impanelment and service on the morning of September 7th. This was in strict compliance with the requirements of the statute. The case had not been called for trial, but was set for trial on the following day, when the above motion of the defendant was renewed and properly denied by the court before proceeding with the trial.

It was held in People v. Lembke, 320 Ill. 553, 151 N. E. 535, that where there are less than the required twenty-four jurors on the panel, names should be drawn from the jury list by the clerk of the court and those persons summoned in order to make the required number, even though to avoid delay talesmen are summoned from bystanders by the sheriff to make up the required number for the trial of a particular case.

Here, after the order of the court that additional jurors be drawn to complete the regular panel, it would have been proper to order the sheriff to call ten jurors from the body of the county or from bystanders to complete the jury. However, no talesman called by the sheriff was either used as a member of the panel or in the trial of the cause on September 7th, after the regular panel of twenty-four jurors was completed as required by statute and the special talesmen had been excused. The jurors must be by order of the court drawn by the clerk from the regular list from the jury box and there must be twenty-four in number accepted by the court to constitute the valid jury panel. Borrelli v. People, 164 Ill. 549, 45 N. E. 1024. This procedure was followed by the court and was neither erroneous nor harmful to the rights of the defendant.

Plaintiff in error further contends that the jury list was not prepared in accordance with the provisions of the jury act; that the last list containing 10 per cent of the legal voters of said county, which list had not been exhausted and from which the names in the jury box had been drawn, was prepared by the county board at its September meeting, 1937. Section 1, ch. 78, Ill. Rev. Stat. 1937 [Jones Ill. Stats. Ann.

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32 N.E.2d 352 (Appellate Court of Illinois, 1941)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
29 N.E.2d 110, 306 Ill. App. 477, 1940 Ill. App. LEXIS 874, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-stamey-illappct-1940.