Case ID: ri_14/html/0266-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Per Curiam.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

State vs John S. O’Brien.
    Exemption from jury duty is not a disqualification to act as juryman. It is a personal privilege which may be claimed or waived.
    Exceptions to the Court of Common Pleas.
    The defendant was indicted in the Court of Common Pleas for keeping a liquor nuisance. When the indictment was called for trial be exhausted his peremptory challenges of jurymen, and then challenged one B., on the ground that B. was a constable of the town of Pawtucket, and therefore not qualified to sit as a juryman. The presiding justice refused to allow the challenge, and ruled that the statutory exemption of constables from jury duty was a personal privilege which B. could claim or waive, but was not a disqualification for which B. could be challenged by the defendant. It was admitted that B. was a constable. To this ruling the defendant excepted.
    
      Samuel P Colt, Attorney General, for plaintiff.
    
      John M. Brennan, for defendant.
    
      October 4, 1883.
   Per Curiam.

We are of opinion that a person who is exempted from jury duty by the statute is not thereby disqualified from serving as a juror, his exemption being a personal privilege which he may either claim or waive at his option. This, so far as we know, is the opinion which has always prevailed in this court as a matter of practice, although there is no reported decision. The opinion is however in accordance with the reported decisions of other States. Munroe v. Brigham, 19 Pick. 368; State v. Forshner, 43 N. H. 89; State v. Wright, 53 Me. 328; Davis v. The People, 19 Ill. 74; Murphy v. The People, 37 Ill. 447. Fxceptions overruled.