Case Name: Walker v. The State
Court: Tennessee Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Tennessee
Decision Date: 1906-12
Citations: 118 Tenn. 375
Docket Number: 
Parties: Walker v. The State.
Judges: 
Reporter: Tennessee Reports
Volume: 118
Pages: 375–376

Head Matter:
Walker v. The State.
(Nashville.
December Term, 1906.)
JUROR. Objection to, for disqualification propter defectum, too late after verdict.
An objection that a juror, though, a resident of the county and otherwise qualified, lived outside the territorial jurisdiction of the court and within that of a special court created for a limited portion of the same county, is propter defectum, and must be made in limine, and comes too late after verdict.
PROM DICKSON.
Appeal in error from tbe Circuit Court of Dickson County. — B. D. Bell, Judge.
R. L. Leech and G-. Egerton, for Walker.
Assistant Attorney-General Faw, for State.

Opinion:
Mr. Chief Justice Beard
delivered tbe opinion of tbe Court.
Plaintiff in error was indicted for tbe murder of one Collier, and on a trial in tbe circuit court of Dickson county was found guilty of voluntary manslaughter, and bis punishment fixed at five years' confinement in tbe. penitentiary. On this appeal from tbe judgment pro- nonneed on this verdict, we deem it unnecessary to state the evidence on which the conviction rests, or to notice it, further than to say we are satisfied, after a careful examination of the record, that the finding of the jury is sustained by the weight of the testimony submitted to them.
It was urged in the court below on the motion for a new trial, and the insistence is renewed here, that the verdict was vitiated by reason of the fact that one of the jurors, while a citizen of Dickson county and otherwise qualified, lived outside of the territorial jurisdiction of the trial court and within that of a special court created by chapter 287, p. 533, of the Session Acts of 1899, for a limited portion of that county.
This objection was one propter defectum, and came too late. Such an objection must be made in limine, It is immaterial that the particular disqualification is unknown to the party complaining and his counsel when the juror is accepted. The acceptance, when once made, is conclusive. This is an ancient rule of the common law, adopted by this court at an early day, and uniformly applied. Among the cases recognizing it are McClure v. State, 1 Yerg., 206; Gillespie v. State, 8 Yerg., 507, 29 Am. Dec., 137; Ward v. State, 1 Humph., 255; Hamilton v. State, 101 Tenn., 417, 47 S. W., 695; Goad v. State, 106 Tenn., 175, 61 S. W., 79.
The judgment of the circuit court is therefore affirmed.