United States v. Clawson

4 Utah 34
CourtUtah Supreme Court
DecidedJanuary 15, 1885
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 4 Utah 34 (United States v. Clawson) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Utah Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Clawson, 4 Utah 34 (Utah 1885).

Opinion

Zane, C. J.:

At tbe last September term of tbe third judicial district court, tbe appellant was tried on an indictment containing two counts; tbe first charged polygamy, and tbe second unlawful cohabitation. 'He was convicted on both counts, and sentenced on tbe first to pay a fine of $500.00 and to imprisonment in tbe penitentiary for a term of three years and six months, and on tbe other count to pay a fine of $300.00 and to imprisonment for a term of six months. From this judgment be has appealed to this court.

Tbe defendant insists that tbe jury that tried him was not legally constituted because section 4 of an act of Congress in relation to courts and judicial officers in the territory of Utab, approved June 23, 1874, was not followed in tbe selection of tbe jury.

Tbe provisions of that section in so far as they are material to this case are that annually in tbe month of January, the clerk of tbe district court and tbe judge of [36]*36probate of tbe county in wbicb such court is to be held, shall mate a jury list from which grand and petit jurors shall be drawn to serve until a new list shall be made, as in .the section provided; that the clerk and the judge shall alternately select a name until two hundred names have been selected.

The section also provides that the names on the list shall be written on slips of paper and deposited in a box, prescribes the mode of drawing the regular grand and petit jurors for each term and directs that the names so drawn shall not be returned to the box until a new list is made according to the manner prescribed in the section.

It is also provided that, if during the term any additional jurors shall be necessary they shall be drawn from the box by the United States marshal in open court.

The record shows that during the trial of the defendant and before the requisite number of jurors had been obtained, all the names were drawn out of the box, and the# list of two hundred names was exhausted; that the district attorney, on the ground that the list provided for by statute was exhausted, then moved the court to issue a venire in order that the requisite number might be obtained, and the jury completed; and that thereupon a venire was issued to the marshal directing him to summon from the body of the district fifty jurors. From these the jury was completed.

This was the only means by which the court could obtain a jury to try the cause. For the clerk and probate judge are authorized to make a list only in January. The statute does not provide for a second list in any year; and to have stopped in the midst of the trial and to have issued a mandamus requiring the judge of probate and the clerk to do an act which the law either in terms or by fair construction did not require them to do, would have been unlawful, arbitary and absurd; it would have resulted in injecting into the case on trial, a mandamus suit, and the result would have been confusion and useless delay. It is also likely that the jurors which would have been selected by the probate judge would have disqualified themselves for sitting in a polygamy case, by answering that they [37]*37believed polygamy and unlawful eobabitation to be right. And tbe marshal is as certain as the clerk to select impartial jurymen. So that the real object in view — the selection of an impartial jury — was fully attained.

The court had two courses open before it — one was to stop the trial without the consent of the parties and to continue the case not only for the September term but for the December term as well, and to the February term;' five months at least, and that too contrary to th'e Constitution, which guarantees to every man charged with* a crime a speedy and impartial trial.

It is unreasonable to hold that Congress by the section in question intended to paralyze the action of the courts. If the method provided by the statute under consideration fails, it does not forbid the court from obtaining a jury by an open venire. If the common law method is repealed or forbidden it is wholly by construction and implication.

The laws of the United States expressly require each of the district courts of this territory to hold four terms a year. If the construction insisted upon by the appellant be correct, the number of the terms may^be limited to two or even one term for the trial of polygamy cases.

There can be no court for the trial of criminal and other jury cases without a jury. But if the method expressed in the statute be exclusive, practically it may limit the terms to two or even one. If the position of appellant is right, the terms last year were limited to two for polygamy and unlawful cohabitation cases, because the list was not sufficient for the third term. And it appears that there was no jury for any class of cases for the December term, as no names at all were left in the box.

The court properly followed the statutory method of obtaining a jury until that method was exhausted; and it then was its duty to resort to the powers incident to it under the common law and to obtain a jury according to that method. This view is supported by the authorities cited by the prosecution. In an opinion given in the case of the United States v. Rose, 6 Federal Reporter 136, Swing, D. J. quoted the language of section 2 of the [38]*38act of June 30 th, 1879, which, is: .“And that all such jurors, grand and petit, including those summoned during the session of the court, shall be publicly drawn from a box containing at the time of each drawing the names of not less than 300 persons possessing the qualifications prescribed in Section 800 of the Revised Statutes; which names shall have been placed therein by the clerk of such court and a commissioner to be appointed by the judge thereof, which commissioner shall be a citizen of good standing, residing in the district in which such court is held, and well known member of the principal-political party in the district in which the court is held opposing that to which the clerk may belong; the clerk and said commissioner each to place one name in said box alternately without reference to party affiliations, until the whole number required shall be placed therein: and also the language of Section 804 of the Revised Statutes of the United States, the former law, which is: “When from challenges or otherwise there is not a petit jury to determine any civil or criminal cause, the marshal or his deputy shall by order of the court in which such deficiency of jurors happens, return jurymen from the bystanders sufficient to complete the panel;” and said: “This section is not repealed in terms by the act of June 30th, 1879, nor do we think it is by implication. Besides, if such were the construction, the inconveniences and delays to the court in the transaction of business would be incalculable;” and after pointing out the delays and inconveniences, the court further said: “It certainly was not in contemplation of Congress that a construction working such inconveniences should be given to the law.”

The language of the act of June 30th, 1879, was more explicit and authorized a stronger inference of an intention to exclude any other method of obtaining a jury than would section 4 of the act of June 23rd, 1874, on which the defendant relies. And the reasons for the former statute were similar to and quite as important as the reasons for the latter. In the case cited the statutory method had not been exhausted; in the case in hand it had; and if the objection had been sustained by the court in the former [39]

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
4 Utah 34, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-clawson-utah-1885.