Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1911-05-13
COURT Of ERRORS
DECLARES VALID
JURY REVIEW ACT
Power of Judges to Revise Lists
Affirmed by Highest
Tribunal.
SHERIFFS' AUTHORITY
DEFINED BY JUSTICE
Constitution Does Not Limit Sea
lection of TaIesmen to
Them Alone.
Especial to the Newark star

t1RS~ ~ NI stall
TRENTON, May 1s.-The constitu
tionality of the laws of 1906 which
clothed common pleas judges with au-
thorfty to reform jury lists prepared
by sheriffs has been declared to oe
good by the Court of Errors and APP
peals In an opinion written by Justice
Garrison.
The opinion is very far-reaching and
practically sets aside the doctrine laid
down in the Supreme Court In the suit
brought by former Sheriff Virtue, of
Essex county, a few years ago., when
the Supreme Court held that sheriffs
couldnot be deprived of their rights
to charge of prisoners in county
jails.
The case in which the Court of Err
rors and Appeals reached it's conclu-
sions was the conviction of Johanna
De Lorenzo n Christian Neupert in
Hudson county. The error assigned for
the defendants was the oyerruling by
the trial court of a challenge to the ar
ray of petit jurors. The ground of this
challenge was that the act of 1906 was
unconstitutional. The ultimate ques-
ton considered was the power of the
Legislature to enact the statute.
The legal principles established BY
the decision are set forth in the syllabus
of the opinion as follows:
THE Constitution of this State does
not prohibit the Legislature from pass
ing general laws providing for the man
ner in which, and the persons by whom
such Jurors shall be selected, drawn,
summoned or empaneled.
What is mentioned in the Constitu-
ton Of the office of sheriff does not con-
kfa@A III
ture by which it is prohibited from en-
acting laws the effort of which is to
subtract from the overs exercised by
sheriffs at the time the Constitution
was adopted
when a later Constitution adopts q
provision of an earlier one that has re-
ceived a certain practical construction
such provision is deemed to be adopted
as thus construed.
Purpose of Trainers.
1.-THE trainers of the Constitution of
1914. having adopted the provision of
the Constitution of 1776, with respect to
snerifs. with knowledge of the practi-
cal construction that intervening Legis-
latures have placed upon such provi-
ston, the presumption Is that In adopt
ing such provision such construction
was also adopted.
Virtue VS.. Freeholders of Essex
county, 3s vroom, 1879, d~isapproved.
Courts do not invalidate, as con-
trRry to the constitution, a legislative
enactment that is supportable under
a view OF the constitutions that it was
permissible for the legislature to take
Constitutions limitations are to be
established and defined by words that
are found written in that instrument
and not by reference to some spirit that
is supposed to pervade it or to under
lie 1t or ~overshadow its expressed pro-
visions.
THE supplement to an act concern
ing juries' Up. L. 1905, p. 218), by which
lists of Jurors selected by sheriffs are
subjected to reform by judges of the
common pleas is a valid enactment
which the legislature was not pro-
Inhibited from passing either (a) by
article l., section Z of the constitutions:
The right to trial by jury shall remain
invioiate' or (b) by article VII, Sec
ton 2, pl. Z. 'sheriffs and coroners shall
be elected by the people of their respec-
tive counties"
In his opinion Justice Garrison re-
mared that the provision whose con-
stitutionality was attacked was that
which requires the Judge of the Com
mon Pleas to appoint jurors to the
general panel in substitution for
jurors selected and drawn by the sher-
if. He said it was clear that the
statute expressly authorizes this to be
done, and continued:
The Real Issue.
'The sole question is whether by the
constitution of this State the Legisla-
ture may thus change the manner in
which jurors shall be selected. and
this, as a judicial inquiry, resolves itself
into the question Of the existence of
a. constitutional limitation by force of
which the Legislature is prohibited
from changing the of selecting
jurors from that in use a. the time the
constitution was adopted"
Counsel for the defendants contended
that such a Limitation did exist and
that 1t is imposed on the Legislature
by the constitution in two different
ways. The first of these was by the
express language of article one that the
right of a trial by jury shall remain
inviolate, and the second by an impli-
cation which counsel thought arose
from the language of article seven that
sheriffs and orone shall be elected
by the people of their respective coun-
ties. Disposing of the first Of these
contentious, Justice Garrison said:
with respect to the Arst of these
contentious we think that the meaning
and force Of article l, section Z, and the
extent to which 1t constitutes a Inn
itation upon the legislative bran,h of
the government are not open to ques-
ton since the detcision of this court
In State VS.. Brown. In the applic-