Case ID: ohio-cc-ns_9/html/0049-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
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Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

JURY DISTRICTS AND TRIAL DISTRICTS SHOULD COINCIDE.
    [Circuit Court of Franklin County.]
    Clara Fendrick v. State of Ohio.
    
    Decided, October 8, 1906.
    
      Criminal Law — -Affidavits Charging Misdemeanors — Jurors—Districts from Which They Must he Summoned to Meet Constitutional Requirements.
    
    1. A motion to quash an affidavit for the reason that the affidavit does not conclude with the words, “contrary to the statute in such case made and provided, and against the peace and dignity of the state of Ohio,” will not lie where the affidavit charges a misdemeanor and makes clear the nature of the crime charged.
    2. In all cases where crime is charged the jury district, to meet constitutional requirements, should be co-extensive with the trial district; and it follows that one charged with an offense committed beyond municipal limits, but within police court jurisdiction as fixed by 97 O. L., 7, can not be legally tried by a jury drawn from residents of the municipality only.
    C. D. Saviers, for plaintiff in error:
    An affidavit for prosecution of misdemeanor is not required to conclude with “contrary to the statute in such cases made and provided, and against the peace and dignity of the state of Ohio.” Olendorf v. State, 64 Ohio St., 118.
    An impartial jury of the district in which an offense is committed is necessary to conviction in the police court where its jurisdiction extends beyond corporate limits. Section 10 of the Bill of Rights of 1851; Anonymous, 36 Bull., 301; State v. Voris, 8 N. P., 16; Lloyd v. Dollisin, 3 C. C. — N. S., 328; Cooley, Const. Lim., Sec. 320; Cooper v. State, 16 Ohio St., 328; State v. Peters, 67 Ohio St., 494; Ilanaghan v. State, 51 Ohio St., 24; Carper v. State, 27 Ohio St., 572; Davis v. State, 19 Ohio St., 270; Hogue v. Stale, 3 C. C. — N. S., 315; Smith v. State, 12 C. C., 458; Geiger v. State, 5 C. C., 283; Pope v. Cincinnati, 3 C. U., 497; Frank v. Cincinnati, 7 N. P., 146; Ladd v. State, 5 C. O., 276; 
      Hartnell v. Skate, 42 Ohio St., 568; Palmer v. State, 42 Ohio St., 596; Heed v. Slate, 15 Ohio, 217.
    Dustin, J.; Wilson, J., and Sullivan, J., concur.
    Error to Franklin common pleas court.
    Plaintiff in error was prosecuted in the police court of the city of Columbus for “keeping a house! of ill fame,” it appearing from the affidavit that the house was located some two hundred feet outside the corporate limits of the city.
    The claim of jurisdiction was based upon 97 O. L., 7, giving said court jurisdiction in minor offenses over the city, and the adjoining territory within four miles of the corporation line.
    Upon trial a jury was summoned from the city, pursuant to ordinance No. 14401, which provides for the selection of jurymen from the city only.
    Plaintiff in error demurred to the affidavit because it did not close with the words ‘1 contrary to the statute in such cases made and provided, and against the peace and dignity of the state of Ohio.” The demurrer was overruled. She also challenged the jury because selected from the city, and not from the county or district in which the offense is alleged to have been committed, pursuant to Section 10, Article I of the Constitution, The challenge was not sustained.
    Exception was also taken to the admission of evidence as to the reputation of the place, and of the women who were found there. There was a verdict of guilty and sentence.
    On error to the common pleas court, the proceedings were affirmed; and error is now prosecuted to this court to reverse the judgments of the courts below for the reasons above stated, and because the verdict was against tire weight of the evidence.
    We are of the opinion that there was no error in overruling the demurrer to the affidavit. Section 20, Article IV of the Constitution provides that all indictments shall conclude with the words “against the peace and dignity of the state of Ohio.” There is no such requirement as to affidavits upon which prosecutions for minor offenses are founded, Nor is it necessary. If the.affidavit describes 1h? crime, the court will take judicial notion that it is contrary to the statutes) aud it’ contrary to the ci imimt] statutes, it is against the peace and dignity of the state of Ohio.
    The next question is more serious. It would be easy of solution but for the provision of the ordinance with reference to the drawing of the jury. The mere fact that all members of’the jury happened to be citizens of Columbus was a matter of no consequence. If .their names were drawn from a box containing names of citizens of the outside townships, the rights of the accused would have been fully preserved. But, the ordinance referred to required'that the jury be selected from citizens of Columbus. Residents of other parts of the county were excluded. As Judge Earnhart aptly remarks in State v. Voris, 8 N. P., 16, the citizens of the outside territory “could appear only as- culprits. ” They had no part in the administration of the law; even with reference to offenses committed within their own bailiwick. Although living in a district defined in the statute, and much larger in area than the city of Columbus, they are subject to be dragged to the smaller district, and tried before what is to them an alien court, although in their residence district there is an organized judicial system. We think that is not within the letter or the spirit of the Constitution.
    The question has not been passed upon in Ohio, except by Judge Earnhart, in State v. Voris, supra, and by Judge Slough, of Fairfield County Common Pleas Court, in Friend v. Holliday, 48 Bull., 107. In the report of Friend v. Holliday no authorities are cited. But Judge Earnhart’s opinion is supported by pertinent citations.
    In Olive v. State, 11 Neb., 1, it is held in a very full opinion, that—
    “While the Legislature doubtless may, in their discretion, by general law, create trial districts larger than a single county, yet, to be effective, such law must be accompanied by one under which jurors can be called from the whole, and not from merely a portion of such district. In other words, the trial district and the jury district must be the same.”
    To the same effect is Armstrong y. State, 41 Tema. (1 Goldw.), 338.
    
      As holding to the contrary, two citations are noted: Slate v. Stewart, 60 Wis:, 587 (50 Am. Rep., 388), and State v. Robinson, 14 Minn., 447, and upon these the decision of the court below was founded. Both of these cases were with reference to proceedings under a statute giving a county court jurisdiction over crimes committed within the territorial limits of the county “and one hundred rods beyond the boundary line.” In the first case the accused was charged with obtaining property under false pretenses, and it appeared that the alleged false pretenses were made in one county and the property (a horse) obtained in another. The accused was arraigned in the county where the false pretenses were made, and the point was suggested that the crime was not complete without obtaining the property, and that the law giving the court jurisdiction beyond the county was unconstitutional for the reasons urged in this case.
    The court held the law constitutional, but its opinion was founded upon eases holding that where a crime was committed partly in one county and partly in another, the accused was triable in either. The court, however, went further and held that the law was constitutional as applied to any crime; but expressly refused to decide “whether a juryman residing outside of the county, but within one hundred rods of the county line, and hence within the district; would for that reason be incompetent, or a subject of peremptory challenge,” such a question not being before the court.
    In State v. Robinson, supra, the court was inclined to sustain a law of long standing, which served a useful purpose in avoiding embarrassing questions and technical difficulties in prosecutions for crimes committed near county lines ,- and also because there was “an entire absence of adverse authority.”
    With due respect to the high character of these authorities, we think the holding in the Nebraska and Tennessee cases above cited, and by Judge Earnhart is more logical and consistent. In all criminal cases, we think the jury district should be co-extensive with the trial district, in order to meet the requirements of the Constitution.
    We find no other error in th§ proceedings,
    
      The judgments of the common pleas and police courts will be reversed, and remanded to the police court for a new trial before a competent jury.
    
      C. D. Saviers, for plaintiff in error.
    
      J. M. Butler, Q. 8. Marshall, C. E. Carter and J. G. Westwaler, for defendant in error.
    
      
       Reversing the second syllatyu&f of Fendrick v. Ohio, 4 O. L. R., 350.