State v. Newcomb

109 P. 355, 58 Wash. 414, 1910 Wash. LEXIS 949
CourtWashington Supreme Court
DecidedMay 21, 1910
DocketNo. 8611
StatusPublished
Cited by21 cases

This text of 109 P. 355 (State v. Newcomb) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Washington Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Newcomb, 109 P. 355, 58 Wash. 414, 1910 Wash. LEXIS 949 (Wash. 1910).

Opinion

Morris, J.

Appellant was, on October 20, 1909, convicted of murder in the first degree, and upon entry of judgment upon such conviction, appeals to this court. Many of the assignments of error are not properly before us, inasmuch as there is no statement of facts nor bill of exceptions, which, under our practice, furnishes the only method for preserving exceptions for review in this court, when the same are properly certified to by the trial judge. For this reason the state moves to strike much of the transcript brought here by appellant. This applies, of course, only to such portions of the transcript as contain matter not part of the record in the court below, and to preserve which there must be either statement of facts or bill of exceptions properly certified by the trial judge. This motion is well taken, but from the nature of the case we will not grant it, but will review all exceptions where the transcript contains sufficient of the record, and other matter not within the record, to enable us to pass upon the questions involved.

The first error assigned is the refusal of the court to transfer the cause for trial to Department No. 1 of the superior court for Pierce county. This assignment was before us in the petition of appellant for a writ of habeas corpus, and was then held untenable. In re Newcomb, 56 Wash. 395, 105 Pac. 1042. The question then suggested was that the court was without jurisdiction. For the same reasons then advanced, we hold such refusal was not error.

Next, it is said the court erred in overruling appellant’s challenge to the panel of jurors. The crime of which the appellant was convicted was committed in May, 1909. The jury law in force at that time provided that the jurors should be selected from a box containing the names of the qualified jurors of the county. By Laws 1909, chap. 73, page 131 (Rem. & Bal. Code, § 94), the method of selecting jurors was changed, as well as their qualifications, the new law providing for an additional qualification in that the juror should be a taxpayer, and further providing that each [417]*417county should be divided into not less than three nor more than six jury districts; that in July of each year the county clerk should make up a list of all the qualified jurors in the county, ascertaining the residence of each juror, and deposit his name in the jury box of the district in which he resided; that whenever a jury should be called in any county, the names of the jurors should be drawn in equal number from each jury box. This law went into effect in June, and the jury before whom appellant was tried was selected as provided for in the new act, Pierce county having, in accordance with the provisions of the law, been divided into three jury districts.

The appellant contends that the portion of the act dividing counties into jury districts is unconstitutional and void. We are aware of no provision of the constitution which this law violates. Article 1, section 22, of the constitution grants to each person accused of crime “a speedy public trial by an impartial jury of the county in which the offense is alleged to have been committed.” The law in question does not attempt to provide for a jury from any division or district less than the whole county. The names of all the qualified jurors of the county are placed in boxes, arranged according to the district in which the juror may reside, and the jury, when drawn by the clerk for service in any month, is drawn in equal numbers from each box, thus providing each litigant and each person accused of crime a jury drawn from the entire county and not from any particular section or division of the county. Under the old law it would have been possible for all the jurors selected in any one month to come from the same section of the county. Had the old law been in force, appellant might have been tried before a jury all of whom resided in Tacoma, or in the precinct in which his crime is alleged to have been committed, and thus great difficulty been encountered in selecting a jury free from local prejudice. Under the law such a condition cannot [418]*418exist, the jurors in equal numbers representing the three jury districts, and the opportunity for obtaining a jury free from local prejudice greatly increased. Such a jury is undeniably “a jury of the county.”

Under the old rule of the common law, the jury was required to come from the vicinage or neighborhood of the place where the crime was alleged to have been committed, or the cause of action, if civil, arose; and it was a ground of challenge if some given number were not summoned from the hundred in which such place lay. This rule was gradually changed until the law was satisfied if the jury was returned from any part of the county; and the words “jury of the county,” as used in our constitution, have never been held to mean more than that the jurors, when summoned, should come from some part of the county. The constitution, then, granting to appellant a trial before “a jury of the county,” the jury before whom he was tried having been drawn from boxes containing the names of the qualified jurors in certain designated sections of the county, but the boxes together containing the names of all the qualified jurors of the county, and the panel being drawn in equal number from each box, the jury thus selected could be nothing less than “a jury of the county,” and appellant’s constitutional right to such a jury has in no sense been limited or abridged. The constitution of the United States, by the sixth amendment, provides that:

“In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed.”

Section 802, U. S. Rev. Stats., provides:

“Jurors shall be returned from such parts of the district, from time to time, as the court shall direct, so as to be most favorable to an impartial trial, and so as not to incur an unnecessary expense, or unduly to burden the citizens of any part of the district with such services.”

[419]*419The constitutionality of the latter statute has been sustained in the following cases: United States v. Stowell, 2 Curt. 153; United States v. Richardson, 28 Fed. 61; United States v. Chaires, 40 Fed. 820; Agnew v. United States, 165 U. S. 36.

It is contended in this connection that the new jury law is an ex post facto law, and for such reason bad. We cannot so hold. We know of no definition of an ex post facto law which this law violates. Lybarger v. State, 2 Wash. 552, 27 Pac. 449, 1029. It has never been doubted but that the legislature has ample power to make changes which affect only the remedy or method of procedure. These are not among the guaranties of the constitution in which litigants in civil actions or persons accused of crime can be said to have a vested right. The manner of selecting jurors from the body of the county, the impaneling of a jury in any given case, the * qualifications necessary, the grounds of challenge,—all these are merely regulative in their nature and belong to the matters affecting only the procedure under which the case or crime may be tried, and not the crime itself. Stokes v. People, 53 N. Y. 164, 13 Am. Rep. 492, wherein it is said:

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
109 P. 355, 58 Wash. 414, 1910 Wash. LEXIS 949, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-newcomb-wash-1910.