Rawlings v. State

136 S.E. 448, 163 Ga. 406, 1926 Ga. LEXIS 93
CourtSupreme Court of Georgia
DecidedNovember 25, 1926
DocketNo. 5232
StatusPublished
Cited by28 cases

This text of 136 S.E. 448 (Rawlings v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Georgia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Rawlings v. State, 136 S.E. 448, 163 Ga. 406, 1926 Ga. LEXIS 93 (Ga. 1926).

Opinion

Russell, C. J.

(After stating the foregoing facts.)

Upon being furnished with a fist of the panel of jurors as provided by section 997 of the Penal Code of 1910, C. G. Rawlings challenged the array. The trial judge overruled’ the challenge, and exception is taken to this judgment. Summarizing the facts upon •which the challenge was based, it appears that a jury was regularly drawn at the preceding September term, for the March term, 1925, of Johnson superior court and at the latter term was regularly empaneled in accordance with the provisions of section 857 of the Penal Code. The traverse jurors were discharged on Saturday, March 28, 1925, and the trial judge drew 57 jurors to appear and serve on March 30, 1925, to which date the court took a recess. The defendant’s case was assigned for trial on March 30, 1925. When the court reconvened in accordance with the order taking the recess, and upon the filing of a bill of exceptions to the judgment overruling a motion made by the defendant for a change of venue, the court discharged the 57 tales jurors who had been drawn for the purpose of being used in the trial of the defendant, and took a recess until the third Monday in June, and then recessed until the third Monday in August, 1925. The court not 'having finally adjourned, on Thursday, August 14, 1925, the judge drew a new panel of 100 “traverse tales jurors,” whom he ordered to be summoned to attend court on Monday, August 17, 1925, and from this 100 jurors the panel put upon the defendant was taken, to the exclusion of all the jurors regularly, drawn for the term and ‘all the tales jurors drawn on March 28, 1925. The complaint of the plaintiff in error is that the presiding judge had no right in [417]*417law to arbitrarily exclude the regularly drawn traverse jurors, and arbitrarily excuse the first panel of tales jurors drawn by him on March 28, 1925, and arbitrarily substitute the tales jurors drawn by him on August 14, 1925. Johnson superior court convenes twice a year, on the third Mondays in March and September. The length of the term is not fixed by law. Acts 1911, p. 61; Acts 1913, p. 65. It is admitted in the brief and argument that the whole of the second week of the March term, 1925, of Johnson superior court, ending on Saturday, March 28, was consumed in the trial of another case. From the acts fixing the terms of Johnson superior court above referred to, it must be presumed that the regular panel of jurors for that term had already served two full weeks. So we can not say that the discharge for the term of all of the jurors regularly drawn for service at that term was arbitrary, as insisted by the plaintiff in error.

However, regardless of this, when the court reassembled after a temporary recess, and before the qualification of the jury became important or was in order, the defendant moved a change of venue, and upon the overruling of his motion filed a bill of exceptions, which operated to continue the defendant’s trial until an adjudication upon the bill of exceptions. As the court could not foresee the exact length of time which would elapse before a determination of the issue raised in the bill of exceptions, it was entirely proper for the court to discharge the 57 talesmen who had been summoned in anticipation of a trial on March 30, which was indefinitely postponed. The court then ordered an adjournment until June, and then, doubtless because the trial upon review had not been completed, again adjourned until August 17, 1925, and thus was constituted an adjourned term of the court to begin on August 17, 1925, in which the presence of jurors might be necessary; and accordingly, on August 14, the judge drew a jury of 100 who were summoned to appear for duty at this adjourned term of court set for August 17, 1925. Did the court have the power to thus constitute a jury for the trial of the defendant? We think that the ruling of this court in Woolfolk v. State, 85 Ga. 69 (11 S. E. 814), conclusively answers this question, and is controlling. In that ease this court construed section 3942 of the Code of 1882, and-applied it to a state of facts identical with those presented by the challenge to the array in this case in respect to the fact that the [418]*418court which was about to try one accused of crime found itself without a jury with which to proceed in the trial. Section 3942 still is of full force, it being section 875 of the Penal Code of 1910. In Woolfolk’s case the situation was brought about by the court’s discharge of the regular panel of jurors after a mistrial. In the present case it was brought about by the fact that the court was obliged to suspend or adjourn, because of the filing of the bill of exceptions to the judgment overruling the motion to change the venue. But in Woolfolk’s case, as in the case at bar, none of the original panel of regular traverse jurors were embraced in the jury put upon the defendant and to which the defendant objected by challenging the array. So it will be readily seen that the precise question now before us was adjudicated in Woolfolk's case.

In passing upon this question this court said: “The power of the judge, under the circumstances above stated, to draw a jury and have the jurors summoned and put upon the defendant, is the only question made by the defendant upon this branch of the case. If the judge had the power to draw this jury, he was right in overruling the challenges; if he did not have the power, he should have sustained them. The several sections of the code which regulate the drawing'of juries provide for the drawing of a jury in almost every conceivable case where one is needed; and the general tenor of the code is to give power and authority to the judge of the superior court to draw and summon juries whenever the business of the court requires it. We think that, under section 3942 of the code, the trial judge, under the peculiar facts of this case, had power and authority to draw the jury as he did. That section is as follows: ‘ Whenever the session of any court of record in this State shall be prolonged beyond the week or period for which juries were drawn at the close of the preceding term, as by law provided, or the judge anticipates that the same is about to be so prolonged, or from any other cause such court has convened or is about to convene, and there have been no juries drawn for the same, it shall and may be lawful for such judge to draw juries, so many as may be necessary for such court, and cause them to be summoned accordingly, in the manner prescribed for drawing juries at the close 'of the regular terms of such courts respectively.’ Here was a court which had met for the express purpose of trying the defendant. The juries were properly organized at the commencement [419]*419of tbe court. For some reason, which the judge doubtless deemed sufficient, these jurors had been discharged and a mistrial had been declared. The above section provides that if the session of the court shall be prolonged beyond the week ‘or period for which juries were drawn, or the judge anticipates that the same is about to be so prolongedit shall be lawful for him to draw juries and cause them to be summoned. . . After the mistrial, a new period for the sitting of the court was entered upon, to wit, the period of a second trial, which was not anticipated when the court convened. To have such second trial at that same term, it was necessary to prolong the court beyond the period for which the discharged jurors had been drawn, that period having terminated when the first trial resulted in a mistrial.

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Bluebook (online)
136 S.E. 448, 163 Ga. 406, 1926 Ga. LEXIS 93, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/rawlings-v-state-ga-1926.