Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/114/477/
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 04:43:40+00:00

Document:
"That in any prosecution for bigamy, polygamy, or unlawful cohabitation under any statute of the United States, it shall be sufficient cause of challenge to any person drawn or summoned as a juryman or talesman that he believes it right for a man to have more than one living and undivorced wife at the same time,"
the proceedings to empanel the grand jury which finds an indictment for one of the offenses named under a statute of the United States against a person not before held to answer are a part of the prosecution, and the indictment is good although persons drawn and summoned as grand jurors were excluded by the court from serving on the grand jury on being challenged by the United States, for the cause mentioned, the challenges being found true.
The Statute applies to grand jurors.
Where, under § 4 of the Act of Congress of June 23, 1874, 18 Stat. 254, "in relation to courts and judicial officers in the Territory of Utah," in the trial of an indictment, the names in the jury box of 200 jurors, provided for by that section, are exhausted when the jury is only partly impaneled, the district court may issue a venire to the United States marshal for the territory to summon jurors from the body of the Judicial District, and the jury may be completed from persons thus summoned.
This writ of error was sued out to review an indictment and conviction of the plaintiff in error for polygamy and for cohabiting with more than one woman against the laws of the United States.
At April term, 1884, of the Third Judicial District Court of Utah Territory, Rudger Clawson was indicted, under two counts in the same indictment, one for polygamy and the other for cohabiting with more than one woman. The first count was founded on § 5352 of the Revised Statutes of the United States, as amended by § 1 of the Act of March 22, 1882, 22 Stat. 30, and the second on § 3 of that act. By § 4, counts for those offenses may be joined in the same indictment. The defendant was tried in October, 1884, and found guilty on both counts as charged, and sentenced, on the first count, to pay a fine of $500 and to be imprisoned three years and six months, and on the second count to pay a further fine of $300 and to be imprisoned the further term of six months, and further to be confined till the fines be paid. From this judgment he appealed to the supreme court of the territory, which affirmed the judgment and sentence, and he has brought the case to this Court by a writ of error.
The indictment was presented and filed in court April 24, 1884. On the 30th of April, 1884, before plea, the defendant moved to set aside the indictment on the ground that the grand jury was not legally constituted in that qualified grand jurors, drawn and summoned, were illegally excluded from the grand jury on the challenge of the prosecuting attorney. The motion was heard on an agreed statement of facts which is set out in the bill of exceptions, and was overruled, and the defendant excepted to the decision. The first error here assigned is that that motion was improperly overruled.
be returned to or again placed in said box until a new jury list shall be made. If during any term of the district court any additional grand or petit jurors shall be necessary, the same shall be drawn from said box by the United States marshal in open court; but if the attendance of those drawn cannot be obtained in a reasonable time, other names may be drawn in the same manner. . . . The grand jury must inquire into the case of every person imprisoned within the district on a criminal charge and not indicted. . . ."
"Do you believe in the doctrine and tenets of the Mormon church? Do you believe in the doctrine of plural marriage, as taught by the Mormon church? Do you believe it is right for a man to have more than one undivorced wife living at the same time?"
fifteen persons so interrogated answered the questions affirmatively. Each was thereupon challenged by the prosecuting attorney, and the court allowed the challenges, and excluded each of those fifteen persons from the grand jury. Thus, every one of the twenty-five persons who was a reputed Mormon was excluded from the grand jury. Each of the fifteen persons so interrogated had all the qualifications prescribed by law for grand jurors unless disqualified by such answers. The defendant had not been charged with or held to answer the offenses charged in the indictment, or any criminal offense at the time the grand jury was impaneled; the examination of the persons called as grand jurors, and the challenges, were wholly conducted and made by the prosecuting attorney, and no questions were propounded to or answered by persons with odd numbers opposite their names respecting their religious belief. After those fifteen persons were excluded, only ten grand jurors accepted by the United States remained, out of the list of thirty originally drawn, and thereupon the court ordered a drawing of ten additional names from the general list of two hundred, which was done, three having even numbers and seven odd numbers. A venire was issued for the ten, and six of them appeared, all having odd numbers, and five of the six were added to the ten accepted, and the jury, as impaneled and sworn, consisted of those fifteen, all of them reputed non-Mormons, and it found and presented the indictment against the defendant.
"That in any prosecution for bigamy, polygamy, or unlawful cohabitation under any statute of the United States, it shall be sufficient cause of challenge to any person drawn or summoned as a juryman or talesman first that he is or has been living in the practice of bigamy, polygamy, or unlawful cohabitation with more than one woman, or that he is or has been guilty of an offense punishable by either of the foregoing sections or by section fifty-three hundred and fifty-two of the Revised Statutes of the United States or the Act of July 1, eighteen hundred and sixty-two, entitled"
"An act to punish and prevent the practice of polygamy in the territories of the United States and other places, and disapproving and annulling certain acts of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Utah,"
and undivorced wife at the same time or to live in the practice of cohabiting with more than one woman, and any person appearing or offered as a juror or talesman and challenged on either of the foregoing grounds may be questioned on his oath as to the existence of any such cause of challenge, and other evidence may be introduced bearing upon the question raised by such challenge, and this question shall be tried by the court. But as to the first ground of challenge before mentioned, the person challenged shall not be bound to answer if he shall say upon his oath that he declines on the ground that his answer may tend to criminate himself, and if he shall answer as to said first ground, his answer shall not be given in evidence in any criminal prosecution against him for any offense named in sections one or three of this act; but if he declines to answer on any ground, he shall be rejected as incompetent."
As each of the fifteen persons challenged and excluded answered, when questioned on oath, that he believed it right for a man to have more than one undivorced wife living at the same time, he was properly excluded if § 5 of the act applied to the case.
remedied was the having as grand jurors, against the interest of the United States, the persons specified in a prosecution for the particular offenses named. If the grand jury enters upon the investigation of cases involving the offenses designated, and such investigation results in the finding of an indictment for any of those offenses, it cannot properly be alleged by the defendant in the indictment that the prosecution did not, within the meaning of § 5, begin with the first step in the proceedings to obtain the grand jury which found the indictment. And, for the protection of the defendant himself, it would necessarily be equally held that he was entitled to claim that such proceedings were a part of the prosecution against him, because otherwise he could have no right to question those proceedings.
The prosecution was one for offenses created by a statute of the United States. That is the meaning of § 5 of the act. And it is not an objection that can be urged by this defendant that the same grand jury might have been called upon to act on other offenses than those named in that section.
effect of confining the meaning of "juror" to "petit juror" on the view that the ordinary meaning of "talesman" refers to a petit juror. A grand juror is a juryman and a juror, and is drawn and summoned, and it might well have been thought wisest to mention a "talesman" specifically, lest the words "juryman" and "juror" might be supposed not to include him.
It is objected that none of the grand jurors who were retained on the panel were interrogated as to whether they believed it right for a man to live in the practice of cohabiting with more than one woman. As to this it is sufficient to say that the challenges were based on the affirmative answers to the third question, and that the statute only specifies what shall be a sufficient cause of challenge, and does not compel the making of the challenge or the asking of the questions.
After the motion to set aside the indictment was overruled, the trial was had on a plea of not guilty. In impaneling a jury, it appeared that the list of jurors drawn and summoned for the term, and also the general jury list for the year, consisting of two hundred names selected and returned for a general jury list, were exhausted, and that no names remained in the general jury box. Thereupon the prosecuting attorney, on the ground that the jury list provided for by statute was exhausted, moved the court that an open venire issue to summon such jurors as were necessary. The defendant objected to the issuing of an open venire or any venire for jurors on the ground that there was no law authorizing it. The court overruled the objection, and the defendant excepted. By an order of the court, a venire was then issued to the United States Marshal for Utah Territory commanding him to summon from the body of the judicial district fifty jurors. They were summoned, and on the return of the venire the panel was challenged by the defendant because the jurors were selected and summoned on an open venire. The challenge was overruled, and the defendant excepted. Like proceedings took place in respect to two further open venires for thirty and twenty-four jurors, respectively. Of the twelve persons who composed the jury, eleven were obtained from those summoned under the open venires.
to to obtain jurors in such event, the provisions in § 5 of the act of 1882, for challenges by the United States with a view to indictments for the offenses named in that section will have proved suicidal, and resulted in destroying all opportunity to find or try such indictments. We are not referred to any statutory provision in any act of Congress or any act of the territory which forbids the use of an open venire when the two hundred names are exhausted. The argument is that the provisions of § 5 of the act of 1882 cover the entire subject of obtaining jurors, and do not allow of any supplementary measures, and that such measures cannot be resorted to unless affirmative statute authority, directed to the very point, is to be found.
The Supreme Court of Utah, in its opinion affirming the judgment in the present case, did not refer to any statute of Congress or of the territory directly authorizing the open venire, but rested the power to issue it on the fact that such power was inherent in the court and was not forbidden by any statute in force in Utah, and held that it followed as an incident to the authority and duty of the district court to hold its sessions and try by jury indictments for crimes. We concur in this view so far as the resort to the open venire after the exhaustion of the two hundred names is concerned.
hundred names are "jurors," and are so defined and called in § 4 of the act of 1874. Congress therefore, in using the word "talesman," had reference to a person not drawn from such box. The word "talesman" is not satisfied by referring it to the additional jurors which § 4 of the act of 1874 says may and shall be drawn from the box, if they "shall be necessary," during the term. They are not talesmen in any proper sense, but are as much regular jurors as those first drawn from that box.
and it can only be exercised through the instrumentality of grand juries. They are therefore given by a necessary and indispensable implication. But how far is this implication necessary and indispensable? The answer is obvious. Its necessity is coextensive with that jurisdiction to which it is essential."
The cases to which we are referred by the plaintiff in error were cases where express statute provisions had been disregarded or violated. If in this case an open venire had been issued before the two hundred names were exhausted, a different question would have been presented.

References: § 4
 § 5352
 § 1
 § 3
 § 4
 § 5
 § 5
 § 5
 § 5
 § 5
 § 4
 § 4