Case Name: Hare v. The State
Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Mississippi
Decision Date: 1872
Citations: 1 Mor. St. Cas. 133
Docket Number: 
Parties: Hare v. The State,
Judges: Smith, J. concurred.
Reporter: Mississippi State Cases; being criminal cases decided in the High court of errors and appeals
Volume: 1
Pages: 133–149

Head Matter:
Hare v. The State,
4 Howard, 187.
Murder.
Where a person who was not a sworn officer was permitted to go into the jury room after the jury had retired to make up their verdict, in a capital case, and to have charge of them in the absence of the bailiff, it was held a sufficient ground for a new trial.
The well established rule is, that wherever the circumstances of irregularity attending the deliberations of a jury might have affected the correctness or purity of the verdict, the verdict cannot be sustained; on the contrary, where those circumstances could not have influenced the jury in its determination, the verdict shall stand.
Tbottkk, J. Dissenting.
Error to Hinds circuit court.
At the May term of said court, 1839, William Hare, tbe plaintiff in error, was tried and convicted of tbe murder of Robert Sharp. A motion was made for a new trial by the prisoner, which was overruled.
The motion was supported by affidavits which disclosed these facts. When the case was submitted to the jury, they were placed in charge of a sworn officer, who took them to a hotel in the town of Raymond, at which there were many guests, and there placed them in a rbom wbicb did not admit of being fastened except on the outside. After they had been there some time, how long was not stated, a man by the name of Woodley went into the room unnoticed by the bailiff. That whilst he, the bailiff, withdrew to obtain water for the jury, he left them under the charge of Woodley; that he was absent seven or eight minutes, and that he left the door unfastened. It was proved further that Woodley was not a deputy sheriff, nor was he sworn to take charge of the jury. How long he continued in the room with them, did n ot appear. By the bill of exceptions it appears that the motion was made because Woodley was in the room with the jury, and conversed with them on the subject of the prisoner’s guilt, and to establish this, the affidavit of one of the jurors was offered, which the court below rejected, and although the affidavit had a place designated in the bill of exceptions, yet by some omission, it was not copied.
Before the indictment was found, or the grand jury were sworn, the counsel for the prisoner filed a plea, challenging the array of the panel, on the ground that the same was not drawn at any regular term of the circuit court, or otherwise in pursuance of the statute. The court refused to receive this plea.
The prisoner also tendered a plea, setting out in substance that he “ had before been arraigned and tried for the same offense, which was charged in the bill of indictment.” This plea was likewise rejected and the opinion of the court excepted to.
The following errors in the proceedings of the court below were assigned by counsel for plaintiff in error :
1. The refusal of the court to bear the plea of the defendant challenging and objecting to the array of the panel for the reason that they were not drawn at the preceding regular term of the court, and recorded for the instruction of the prisoner according to the statute.
2. That there was no regular writ of venire facias upon which to bring in the panel.
3. That the writ of venire facias, whereon the said panel was brought into court, was issued without authority, and was therefore null and void.
Hutchinson for plaintiff in error.
The first point to be considered is, whether there was a lawful grand jury. The first assignment brings into review the array of the panel, the venire facias service and return, and the rejection of the plea to the array. Indeed, the plea itself presents the prominent objection. It was offered when the persons selected for a grand jury were about to be sworn. It is stated that the sheriff and clerk on the 18th of March, 1839, which will be judicially recognized as a day of the recess between the fall and spring terms of the circuit court, drew a number of persons to serve as jurors at the next term ; and the clerk issued a written command’ to the sheriff to summon them accordingly. That they were freeholders or householders of the county, or were drawn out of the box one or two, or that the names were registered, does not appear.
It is surely no vain assumption that the grand jury is an essential auxiliary of the court of oyer and terminer, and jai] delivery, and that without its preliminary action a prosecution and conviction for murder could not be sustained. The constituent elements of the grand inquest, as well as that of trial by jury, were, by our national and state constitutions, engrafted upon our civil polity; and, though the forms and modes of these institutions, owing to differences in our condition, habits and circumstances, differ from those of the nation from whom we derived them, the substance of them must be preserved. It cannot be too often or too urgently repeated, that they are the foundation pillars of ¿hat noble fabric of civil liberty which was reared by the Saxon race, and which each successive generation of that race has delighted to beautify and adorn.
But what are those constituent elements thus planted on constitutional foundations, and that must be preserved ? There must be an authoritative and responsible source fx*om which the panel is to emanate; each one in the array must be a freeman, at least in the civil division over which the court is to preside, and the inquest is to be taken ; the panel must be registered or so published previously, as that those who are suitors, or to be tried, can have opportunity to make up knowingly challenges to the array or polls. 3 Black. Com., 355 ; 6 Bacon, 523-4.
In England, the sheriff arrayed the panel, and hence the challenge to the array for his neglect, partiality or corruption; 6 Bacon, 551,552; 1 Chitty Or. Law, 536,537. Here, it is essential to the existence of the grand inquest that some officer, commission, or tribunal should be designated and empowered to select the jurors to be summoned. The act of 1830, Reprint, 304, gave a sure, safe and perfect mode of originating the panel; and adjudications of this court had scrupulously enforced its provisions. The freeholders and householders of the county were to be procured from the assessment rolls and deposited in a box. Then, at the court preceding that to which the venire fcteias was returnable, the sheriff and clerk, in open court, in the presence of the judge, were to draw the required number of names, rejecting the removed and ineligible. The panel thus drawn could not be a shuffled one. The public eye was open upon its inception. On this the venire facias issued, and the panel was registered for inspection. If the circuit court failed to sit, the sheriff and clerk repaired to the probate court, and the record-box was opened, and so the modus operandi excluded the probability of abuse. But the act of 1836 abrogated the challenge to the array and forbid a venire facias being quashed for any cause whatever in any court. Reprint, 578. Let us carry this stolid act into operation. No challenge to the array is to be had, and no venire facias to be quashed. "What then ? Where are we to go for the panel % To the act of 18301 We are constrained to do so because it is a dead letter. If we invoke it as a rule of action, no violation of its provisions, however monstrous, can be noticed. If a sheriff should return a panel of free negroes and rnulattoes as good and lawful men, the judge, in obedience to the act of 1836, would make up his grand jury out of them. Would he reject a plea to the array ? He could not. Would he quash the venire ? Thus, then, it is we are putting our fellowmen upon trials of life and death, under a statute that gives us no panel out of which to form a grand jury, or on which to build petit juries for the trials of issues of traverse and of civil controversies.
Again, another element of the grand inquest to be preserved as we would sustain the institution itself, is that the jurors should have at least the qualification of being freemen. 6 Bacon, 524. The act of 1830 requires freeholders or householders who are free white citizens. But if this requisition be disregarded, under the latter act, it is no vice. If the sheriff were to return a panel of young men, or such as were neither householders nor freeholders, a grand jury could be selected out of them, and under the latter act it would be quite sufficient. Here, those on the panel are called persons.
So, too, it is necessary that the panel should be composed of citizens of the county. 6 Bacon, 559. But as the challenge to the array no longer exists, and as no venire facias is to be vacated for any cause, a panel from Rankin or Warren would have answered to have passed on the indictment in this case, as well as if from Hinds. There was nothing prior to the plea to the array to show from what county those persons came.
Abuses, at each step in the application of the statute in review, multiply and aggravate. Our constitutions in bringing from Britain the institution of the grand jury, assuredly contemplated an impartial inquest. But allow it possible, or even probable, that in some county there may be some temporary excitement, or some undue and formidable conspiracy, and that the sheriff, or whoever may choose to make a panel (for the act of 1836 appoints no person or mode for its emanation) should be very much prejudiced, or somewhat base, and should cull out a trained band to his own notion, your circuit judge is obliged to submit to it. He is constrained to elect his grand inquest out of such material. These illustrations could be readily increased.
There is still another important consideration. It was a portion of the British scheme of grand and petit juries, that the panel should be arrayed and returned “ weeks and months before the jurors were to appear,” and for the very important reason and motive that the suitors and accused should have inspection of the names, that partialities, corruptions, affinities and the like, might be ascertained—and thus the trial, through the grand and petit juries, should be kept pure and sacredly devoted to the administration of public justice. But what is the practice under the late act ? It is to make the list at any time—in any manner—no one knows or can know whether even tbe clerk and sheriff cooperate. In tbe present instance, tbe list was made in March for May, instead of being drawn at tbe preceding term, and of being enrolled according to tbe act of 1830. Instances have occurred where tbe judge gave an oral order, after taking bis seat, and a jury was got up for him in an hour. Is this to be borne ? Is it not plain that with such flagrant violations of tbe act of 1830, which is really tbe law in force, tbe institutions of tbe grand jury and jury trial will sink into the most shameful abuses, tbe extremes! contempt, and become too mean or too hurtful to be preserved ? If you enforce the act of 1836, you are obliged to consider the act of 1830 as suspended and inoperative. You cannot enforce tbe former with tbe power to declare infractions of it illegal and void ; and that you cannot do unless you have tbe power to entertain a challenge to the array and to substantial defects in the venire facias. But as it has been shown that an enforcement of tbe latter act necessarily involves a subversion of tbe constituents and essential elements of tbe grand inquest and trial by jury, as secured to us by the fundamental law, this court is constrained to declare it unconstitutional and void. And this being done, it will be plain that tbe panel was illegal, tbe venire facias void, tbe grand jury unlawful, and that tbe indictment in this case must fall.
Challenge to the array may be made by tbe prisoner before the finding of tbe indictment; and tbe proper time is between tbe appearance and swearing of tbe grand jury. So it was made here. 1 Chitty Or. Law, 309, 544, 545; 1 Burr’s trial, 38 ; Boss v. State, 1 Blackf., 318 ; Hudson v. State, ib., 318 ; Commonwealth v. Clark, '2 Brown, 323; People v. Jewett, 3 "Wend., 314; Commonwealth v. Smith, 9 Mass., 109 ; McClure v. State, 1 Yerg., 206 ; Commonwealth v. Knapp, 10 Pick., 477; Hooker v. State, 4 Ohio, 450; Gardner v. Turner, 9 Johns., 261; Pringle v. Hughs, 1 Cowen, 435, 436, note 1; Commonwealth v. Leppard, 6 Searg. & Eawle, 395 ; Crane -v. Dygett, 4 Wend., 675.
II. Tbe plea of former trial, etc., ought not to have been rejected.
III. A new trial ought to have been granted. After the jury retired under charge of a sworn officer, they, according to his oatb, ought to have been kept together in a convenient place (separated from the rest of the world) without meat, drink or fire, candles and water excepted, suffered to speak to no one, nor to the officer, nor he to them unless to ask if they had agreed, without leave of the court. They were conducted to a room in a tavern; the door for a period left open; they were put under the charge of one who was not an officer, nor sworn. He spoke to them. If these deviations are to be allowed, anything may be. King v. Moseley, etc., 18 Eng. C. & R., 115 ; Cochrane v. Street, 1 Wash., 79,103 ; Howie v. Dunn, 1 Leigh, 455 ; Hale v. Cove, 1 Strange, 642 ; Metcalf v. Dean, Cro. Eliz., 189, 411; Blair v. Chambers, 1 Searg. & Rawle, 169 ; People v. Douglass, 4 Cowen, 26 ; Brant v. Eowler, 7 Cowen, 562.
Foote, on same side.
Thomas F. Collins, attorney general.
McCann’s case, 9 S. & M., 465.
Cornelius v. State, 7 Eng. 782; Ned & Taylor v. State, 9 S. & M., 465; Nelms v. State, 13 ib., 500; Boles v. State, ib., 398; Browning v. State, 33 Miss., 48 ; State v. Preston, 7 N. H., 287; State v. Fox, 1 Ga. Decisions, 35; State v. Peter, ib., 46; McLain v. State, 10 Verg, 241; Hines v. State, 11 Humph., 597; 1 Iredell, 513; Wesley v. State, 11 Humph., 502.

Opinion:
Sharkey, C. J.:
Whilst the law is rigidly vigilant in guarding and preserving the purity of jury trials, yet it will not, for light or trivial causes, impugn the integrity of juries, or question the impartiality of their verdicts. But if the verdict be given under circumstances which might conduce to an improper influence, or the natural tendency of which might be to produce bias or corruption, it cannot then be said to be above suspicion; and if it be not, it must fall short of that perfection which the law requires, and which, under a more guarded administration, it is capable of producing. It is not necessary that any attempt should be made to bias the minds of jurors, or that any pernicious influence should be exerted. The door to tampering is to be closed; this is the only security ; for if it be left open, it may be predicted with certainty that the evil consequences will fall somewhere.
This question has received repeated adjudications, and it will be sufficient for me to refer to some of the decided cases, in which the reasoning is, to my mind, conclusive, and the rule clearly defined.
In the case of the Commonwealth v. Roby, 12 Pick., 496, the question was very fully considered, and it is made so clear that I shall give the language of the chief justice somewhat at length. In giving the general rule he says : " It is a well settled rule of practice incident to all jury trials, that after the jury are charged and have left the court to consider of their verdict, they are to be kept by themselves, without refreshment and without communication with others, until they have agreed. Any departure from this rule is an irregularity; but it is not every irregularity which will render the verdict void, and warrant setting it aside. This depends upon another and additional consideration, namely, whether the irregularity is of such a nature as to aifect the impartiality, purity, and regularity of the verdict."
I might here pause and inquire, what irregularity will, and will not vitiate the verdict ? The object of jury trials suggests the answer. Common reason dictates to us what might affect the "impartiality, purity, and regularity" of a verdict, and whatever might have that effect, will vitiate it, as will appear from the conclusions of Judge Shaw. After he has reviewed many of the authorities, he concludes by saying, " the result of the authorities is that when there is an irregularity which may affect the impartiality of the proceedings, as where meat and drink or other refreshments have been furnished by a party, or where the jury have been exposed to such influence, as where they have improperly separated themselves, or have had communications not authorized, there, inasmuch as there can be no certainty that the verdict has not been improperly influenced, the proper and appropriate mode of correction and relief is by undoing that which was improperly and may have been corruptly done; or where the irregularity consists in doing that which may disqualify the jurors from proper deliberation and exercise of their reason and judgment, as where the act done is contrary to the ordinary forms, and to the duties which jurors owe to the public, the mode of correcting the irregularity is by animadversion upon the conduct of the jurors or of the officers, but such irregularity has no tendency to impair the respect due to such verdict." To me it seems that the line of distinction is here so clearly drawn, that it is impossible to mistake it, and so fortified by reason as to place it beyond doubt. It is briefly this: If the purity of the verdict might have been affected, it must be set aside; if it could not have been affected, it will be sustained. A verdict upon which doubts might rest cannot be good. The same learned judge says, "it must command entire confidence."
The reasons here given run through all the decided cases. In the case of the Commonwealth v. McCall, 1 Va. Cases, one of the jurors separated from his fellows, but for a few minutes, and spoke to no one about the trial, yet a new trial was granted. So in the case of McLain v. State, 10 Yerger, 241, in which a part of the jury separated from the balance for fifteen or twenty minutes pending the trial; this was held sufficient ground for a new trial. In neither of these cases was any such thing as a tampering with a jury shown. The courts both held that to be unnecessary, and say that is sufficient that they might have been subject to improper influences. In the last case the court said " there would be no safety in a different rule of practice, for it would be almost impossible ever to bring direct proof of the fact that it was done." These decisions are evidently based upon the same principles with that first cited, to wit, that the purity of the verdict might have been affected.
In the case of Knight v. Inhabitants of Freeport, 13 Mass. R., 218, the verdict was set aside because a party indirectly interested spoke to one of the jurors and told him he was deeply interested in the case, and that it was a spiteful thing on the part of the plaintiff. This case is only cited to show the degree of strictness necessary to make a valid verdict. The court said " too much care and precaution could not be used to preserve the purity of jury trials." This strictness is necessary to give due confidence to the parties in the results of their causes; and every one ought to know that for any, even the slightest inter-meddling with jurors, a verdict will be set aside.
In the case of Perkins v. Knight, 2 N. H., 474, the court say that " it is of the highest importance that jurors should be preserved not only from all improper bias in causes, but even from the suspicion of improper bias."
It only remains to make an application of these principles to the case before us. If, for a separation of the jury, which occasions a mere exposure to improper influence, a new trial will be granted, why should it not in the present case % The thing to be guarded against is improper influence. Can it not be as well exercised in the jury-room by an individual who has the art and capacity to exercise it, as it can anywhere else ? Woodley was •with the jury, how long it is not known ; who can say that he did not speak of the guilt of the prisoner ? Who can say that he had not influence, and that his influence was not exerted to procure a verdict of guilty? If it was legal for Woodley to be with the jury, it would also be legal for any one else to be there. Suppose that he had been the prosecutor, and an influential man, could it be said, under such circumstances, that the verdict was free from suspicion ? Could every one rely on it as the voice of an impartial jury ? Can there be any difference between admitting a stranger into the jury-room, and admitting him into the company of the jury after they had dispersed ?
To me it seems that all the evils are fully incurred by letting an unauthorized person into the jury room, that could be incurred by letting them separate. It seems to be a proposition too clear to admit of a doubt, that in this way the verdict might be tainted with corruption or bias. If so, the rule winch I have before stated will apply. It applies with all its force. If the sanctity of the jury room may be violated by an intruder, there is an exposure to his influence, and when the opportunity has been offered, no one can say that it has not been used. The verdict is opened to suspicion, and does not, nor cannot command respect and confidence. An artful man might infuse the poison in a few words. We cannot know that Woodley did not do so; or even if we could be satisfied that he did not, another person, on another occasion, might, and the law is to operate by general rules. If it were lawful for him to be there, it -would also be lawful for another person. If lawful for one person, why not for two or more ? One man may effect as much as more could. It is the duty of the court to swear an officer to take charge of the jury; his oath is, that he will not speak to them or permit others to do so. How useless is this ceremony, if the officer may commit the jury to the keeping of one who is not sworn. Suppose the court had called a mere by-stander who was not sworn, to go out with the jury, would a verdict under such circumstances be good ? It would not; and yet, are we to permit the officer to leave tbe jury in an exposed room under tbe charge of any intruder that may thrust himself into the presence of the jury ? Suppose twelve men had been admitted, who could say whether the verdict was the voice of those who had been sworn, or those who had not? and if one be admitted, certainly twelve might with the same propriety. One man could exert all the art, ingenuity, and malice, that twelve could. I must think that this verdict is within the rule. The irregularity might have affected its purity. I am therefore led to the conclusion that a new trial should be granted.
Smith, J. concurred.