Case ID: la_124/html/0377-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "MONROE, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

(50 South. 406.)
    No. 17,629.
    STATE v. LAWRENCE.
    (June 14, 1909.
    Rehearing Denied Oct. 6,1909.)
    1. Constitutional Law .(§ 221*) — Drawing of Jury — Exclusion ' of Disreputable Negroes.
    The fact that the jury commissioners select persons for service on juries with the aid of a city directory, from which are excluded only the names of negro nomads, living about barrel houses, in disreputable parts of the city, affords a defendant in a criminal prosecution, whether white or colored, no legal ground of complaint.
    TEd. Note. — For other cases, see Constitutional Law, Cent. Dig. § 724; Dec. Dig. § 221;* Cent. Dig. Civil Riglits, § 5.]
    2. Criminal Law (§ 1091*) — Appeal — Review of Evidence.
    A bill of exception in a criminal case to the overruling of a motion for new trial, which deals entirely with the sufficiency of the evidence, presents nothing upon which this court can act.
    [Ed. Note. — For other cases, see Criminal Law, Dec. Dig. § 1091.*]
    (Syllabus by the Court.)
    Appeal from Criminal District Court, Parish of Orleans; Joshua G. Baker, Judge.
    Susie Lawrence was convicted of murder, and appeals.
    Affirmed.
    J. Q. Flynn, for appellant. Walter Guión, Atty. Gen., St. Clair Adams, Dist. Atty., and A. D. Henifiques, Jr., Asst. Dist. Atty., for the State.
   On Motion to Dismiss Appeal.

MONROE, J.

Defendant, having been prosecuted for murder, was found “guilty, without capital punishment,” and on April 2, 1909, was sentenced to imprisonment at hard labor for life. On April 13th she applied for, and was granted, an appeal, and the transcript was lodged in this court on April 28th. On the following day the state filed a motion to dismiss the appeal, on the ground that it was not taken in time. The state relies on the provision of Act No. 108, p. 155, of 189.8, which reads:

“Section 1. * * * That appeals to^the Supreme Court, in criminal cases, * * * shall be taken, by motion or in writing, in open court, within three days after the sentence shall have been pronounced.”

It is conceded that, if the three days thus referred to are to be regarded as judicial days, the appeal herein was taken in time; otherwise, that it was too late. The question thus presented was decided in the case of State v. Vicknair, 118 La. 969, 43 South. 635, where it was held, in effect, that the three days allowed by the statute are judicial days.

The motion to dismiss is, therefore, overruled.

On the Merits.

The case is presented on two bills of exceptions — the one, -to the overruling of a motion to quash the indictment; the other to a similar disposition of a motion for new trial.

1. The motion to quash alleges that the grand'' jury which presented the indictment was illegally constituted, in “that, in the selection of the names to be placed in the wheel, from which were selected the members of the grand jury which presented this indictment, the names of all colored persons, otherwise qualified to serve, were excluded from said jury wheel, and only the names of persons who were known to be white were placed in said wheel to serve as jurors; that the names were selected from a directory, from which the names of colored [sic] were carefully excluded, and from the list so made up the names of all colored persons were again excluded” — all of which, it is alleged, was in violation of the Constitution and laws of this state and of the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

Three witnesses were examined in support of this motion.

Charles W. Drown, who was a jury commissioner up to December 1, 1908, testified that the commissioners took the names of the persons who were to be called qn to serve as jurors “mainly from the city directory ; at times, from the registration books.”

Aristide I-Iopkins, who was also a jury commissioner up to December 1, 1908, testified to the same effect.

Louis Abadie, secretary to the Soards Publishing Company, testified 'that the canvassers (presumably, for the city directory) are instructed to take everybody, colored and white, except those “old negroes” [who] “move around every two months, around barrel houses.” He said: “We have thousands of colored people” (in the directory). After hearing the testimony so given, the trial judge overruled the motion, and counsel for defendant took his bill.

Neither the motion nor the bill . show whether the defendant is white or colored; but, whatever,may be her color, we fail to discover why she should complain, or in what manner she has been injured, by the action of the jury commissioners in selecting jurors with the aid of a city directory from which only negro nomads, living about barrel houses, in disreputable parts of the city, are excluded.

2. The motion for new trial deals entirely with the question of the sufficiency of the evidence, a matter with respect to which the court has no jurisdiction.

Judgment affirmed.