Case Name: Commonwealth v. Ayres
Court: General Court of Virginia
Jurisdiction: Virginia
Decision Date: 1849-06
Citations: 6 Gratt. 668
Docket Number: 
Parties: Commonwealth v. Ayres.
Judges: 
Reporter: Virginia Reports
Volume: 47
Pages: 668–668

Head Matter:
Commonwealth v. Ayres.
1849. June Term.
An indictment being quashed because one of the grand jurors who found it was not a freeholder, the indictment is not a sufficient foundation for a rule upon the party to shew cause why an information should not be filed against him.
In August 1846, Barcus Ayres was indicted in the Circuit court of Ritchie, for retailing ardent spirits without a license. At the March term of the Court for 1847, the attorney for the Commonwealth moved the Court to quash the indictment, upon the ground that one of the grand jurors was not a freeholder; and further moved the Court for a rule, founded on said indictment, against the said Ayres, returnable to the next term, summoning him to shew cause why an information should not be filed against him, for the unlawful vending of ardent spirits charged in said indictment.
The Court quashed the indictment upon the motion of the attorney, but refused to make the rule against the defendant, upon the ground, that as one of the grand jurors who found the indictment was not a freeholder, that the grand jury was therefore illegally constituted, and that fact being sufficient to destroy the indictment, it would also destroy its effect as an affidavit. To this opinion of the Court refusing the rule, the attorney for the Commonwealth excepted; and the Attorney General, on behalf of the Commonwealth, applied to this Court for a writ of error.

Opinion:
By the court.
The writ of error .is refused.