Case ID: iowa_97/html/0568-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Given, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

State of Iowa v. Ferdinand Graff, Appellant.
    C lutraclion of Statute: selection of ©rand jury. The act of April 26, 1894, which amended the law as to the grand jury, was, by its express terms, not to take effect until July 1,1895. Held, the grand jury drawn for 1895, under the law as it stood before amendment, constituted the grand jury for all of 1895.
    
      Appeal from Dubuque District Court. — Hon. Fred O’Donnell, Judge.
    Thursday, April 9, 1896.
    Defendant was held in jail to answer before the grand jury for the crime of larceny from a building in the nighttime. At the September term, 1895, he was brought before the grand jury for the purpose of exercising his right of challenge. He challenged the panel “for that said grand jury was not listed, drawn, and impaneled under the 'enactments of the Twenty-fifth General Assembly (chapter 70), nor was any notice published in accordance with said laws, and for those reasons said grand jury was of no legal existence, and had no right to indict.” The challenge was overruled, and said grand jury returned an indictment charging the defendant with the crime of larceny from a build-in the night time. Defendant pleaded not guilty to gaid charge, and was tried and convicted thereof. His motion for a new trial was overruled, and judgment entered that he be imprisoned in the penitentiary for the period of two years and six months at hard labor. Defendant appeals, assigning as errors the overruling of said challenge and said motion for a new trial.—
    
      Affirmed.
    
    
      W. J. Cantillon for appellant.
    
      Milton Beniley, attorney general, for the state.
   Given, J.

I. This grand jury was selected, drawn, and summoned, as provided in’ chapter 10, of title 8, of the Code of 1878, and under that statute constituted the grand jury of Dubuque county, for the year 1895. April 26,1894, chapter 70, of the Laws of the Twenty-fifth General Assembly, entitled “An act to amend chapter 10, title 3, of the Code of 1873, relating to selecting and drawing jurors,” was approved. Said chapter 70, provides a different mode of selecting jurors from that provided in said chapter 10; and appellant’s contention is, that the latter act repealed the former, as to the mode of selecting jurors; therefore, this grand jury, though legally selected under said chapter 10, had ceased to exist, by reason of said repeal. Said chapter 70 provides, that “all statutes and parts of statutes in conflict with this act, are hereby repealed, but this repeal shall not take effect before July 1, 1895.” A grand jury could not be selected after July 1, 1895, for that year, in the manner provided in said chapter 70. We are in no doubt but that it was the intention of the legislature, that grand -juries selected under said chapter 10, for the year 1895, should continue to serve through the year, as provided in said chapter 10.’ Under chapter 70, there was no list from which to draw jurors, until the assessor’s returns for 1895, were made. The provisions of chapter 70, as to selecting grand juries, are not in conflict with chapter 10, as to grand juries in existence when chapter 70 took effect; and therefore, grand juries legally organized under chapter 10, for the year 1895, were legal grand juries for that year.

II. Defendant moved for a new trial, on the grounds of newly-discovered evidence, and that the verdict is contrary to the evidence. Newly-discovered evidence is not a ground for granting a new trial in criminal cases. Code, section 4489. The evidence fully sustains the verdict. We find no error in the record, and think that the defendant received a fair and impartial trial.— Affirmed.