Case ID: sw_265/html/0385-02.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "HAWKINS, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

MOORE v. STATE.
    (No. 8476.)
    (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas.
    Oct. 8, 1924.)
    Criminal law &wkey;>l 1661/2(6) — Jury &wkey;>I3l(6)— Refusal to permit answers to question whether jurors belonged to Ku Klux Klan held reversible error.
    Refusal to permit jurors to answer defendant’s question whether they belonged to Ku Klux Klan, as basis for exercise of peremptory challenges, held reversible error, though court asked any juror belonging to any social order, principles of which would prevent rendition'of impartial verdict, or taking any oath in contravention of oath as juror, to let fact be known.
    Appeal from District Court, Jefferson County; George C. O’Brien,, Judge.
    Guy Moore was convicted of possessing intoxicating liquor for sale, and appeals.
    Reversed and remanded.
    Howth, Adams, O’Fiel & Hart, of Beaumont, for appellant.
    Tom Garrard, State’s Atty., and Grover C. Morris, Asst. State’s Atty., both of Austin, for the State.
   HAWKINS, J.

Conviction is for possessing intoxicating liquor for the purpose of sale.

Under the disposition we find necessary to make of the case, a statement of the facts is not called for.

Bill of exception No. 1 reveals that as a basis for the intelligent exercise of his peremptory challeges appellant asked the jurors if any of them belonged to the Ku Klux Klan. The court declined to permit the question to be answered, but himself asked them the following general question:

“If any of you belong to any social order, the principles of which will prevent you from rendering a fair and impartial verdict in this ease, or if you have taken any oath or obligation which would be in controversion of your oath as a juror in this case, and if for any reason you would or could not in your action as a juror in this ease regard and be governed by your oath as a juror as superior to any other obligation, please speak out now and let it be known, for, if such be the case, you are not a qualified juror.”

None of the jurors made affirmative reply. This court recently has had occasion to review similar proceedings, and the Benson Case, 95 Tex. Cr. R. 311, 254 S. W. 793, is upon the direct point that a general question such as was here propounded will not'suffice for the specific question directed to the jurors by appellant’s counsel, and that the ruling in the present instance abridged the right of accused to interrogate proposed jurymen to the end that he might exercise his peremptory challenge in an intelligent manner. To the same effect is Belcher v. State (Tex. Cr. App.) 257 S. W. 1097; Welk v. State (Tex. Cr. App.) 257 S. W. 1098; Reich v. State, 94 Tex. Cr. R. 449, 251 S. W. 1072; Bennett v. State (Tex. Cr. App.) 261 S. W. 1036. It is but fair to the learned trial judge to state that some of the cases referred to had not been decided when this case was tried.

The judgment must be reversed for the error discussed. The other questions presented we regard as unimportant or such as will not likely arise upon another trial.

The judgment is reversed, and the cause rejnanded. 
      «gmoFor other cases see same topic and KE Si-NUMBER in all Key-Numbered Digests and Indexes