Title: State v. Hall
Citation: 187 So. 2d 861
Docket Number: 44220
State: Mississippi
Issuer: Mississippi Supreme Court
Date: June 13, 1966

187 So. 2d 861 (1966) STATE of Mississippi v. Mrs. Virginia HALL. No. 44220. Supreme Court of Mississippi. June 13, 1966. *863 Joe T. Patterson, Atty. Gen., by G. Garland Lyell, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., Jackson, for appellant. Mitchell &amp; Rogers, Tupelo, for appellee. JONES, Justice. The State appeals from an order of the Circuit Court of Lee County quashing an indictment for murder returned by the grand jury of that county against the appellee. The sole ground of the motion was that under Mississippi Code Annotated section 1762 (1956) women were excluded from jury service and such denied to appellee the equal protection of the law as guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. We do not agree, and the case is reversed and remanded. Appellee bases her assertion upon the case of White v. Crook, 251 F. Supp. 401 (1966), decided February 7, by a United States District Court of Alabama. With deference, we do not consider that case binding here. We begin the discussion of this matter with the statement, respectfully, that we yet are of the firm conviction: 1st. The Constitution is a living document for the operation and perpetuation of our government. 2nd. It should not be changed, expanded or extended beyond its settled intent and meaning by any court to meet daily changes in the mores, manners, habits, or thinking of the people. The power to alter is the power to erase. Such changes should be made by those authorized so to do by the instrument itself the people. When a portion of the Constitution has been construed, considered and acted upon for decades in one way by all branches of government, both federal and state, such meaning should, in the interest of all concerned, not be changed except by amendment. 3rd. The power to prescribe the qualifications for jurors is in the legislature, and it has the power to make reasonable classifications. 4th. No citizen has the absolute right to serve upon a jury. That is a service demanded by the government. If he did have such a right, what would happen when one was peremptorily challenged but insisted on his right to serve? Of course, the peremptory challenge has been too long embodied in our system to now disallow but it has been there no longer than the right of the legislative branch to say who shall be upon the list. 5th. The legislature has the right to exclude women so they may continue their service as mothers, wives, and homemakers, and also to protect them (in some areas, they are still upon a pedestal) from the filth, obscenity, and noxious atmosphere that so often pervades a courtroom during a jury trial. The Fourteenth Amendment was adopted in 1868 as an aftermath of the Civil War. In 1879, the members of the Supreme Court of the United States were men living among and familiar with the hatreds and other emotions aroused by such conflict and prevalent at the time of the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment and of the general feeling that prompted the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court recorded in Strauder v. State of West Virginia, 100 U.S. 303, 25 L. Ed. 664 (1879), for those interested, from a historical standpoint, the surrounding circumstances and reasons for its adoption, and, for those animated by legalistic purposes, *864 it recorded, in addition, the intent and meaning of said Amendment, together with its proper construction. While this last quoted paragraph was many years later referred to as dictum, still it shows now the right to vote was considered and such thinking prevailed universally throughout the nation for fifty years or more before the first efforts were made to change, insofar as women were concerned, and the subsequent changes were all made by the legislatures. Prior to the Strauder case, in Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. (21 Wall.) 162, 22 L. Ed. 627 (1875), and some few years after the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, Virginia L. Minor, et al., sued Reese Happersett, a voter registrar in Missouri, for failure to register plaintiff. The Missouri statute said "male" citizens were the only ones entitled to vote. In discussing the constitutional amendments, it was there said: After discussing the laws of the several states as to suffrage, the Court then said: If the right to vote is not a right and privilege protected by the Constitution, how can it be said the right to serve on a jury is? It was generally recognized that this was the law, and it was not until 1920 when the Nineteenth Amendment was adopted that women were granted the right of suffrage. This amendment did not include the right to serve upon juries although Strauder, supra, had been decided many years prior thereto, and even then (1920) women were not permitted to serve upon juries in Federal Courts, unless the state in which the Court was sitting, by legislative act, had authorized them to serve on state juries. Again, in 1947, the Supreme Court of the United States, in discussing the requirement for women on juries, said in Fay v. People of State of New York, 332 U.S. 261, 67 S. Ct. 1613, 91 L. Ed. 2043 (1947): Afterwards, in 1952, the Supreme Court of the United States, in Brown v. Allen, 344 U.S. 443, 73 S. Ct. 397, 97 L. Ed. 469 (1952), approved the holding in Strauder, supra, when it said: The Court further said: Carrying the matter further, the Supreme Court of the United States, in Hoyt v. State of Florida, 368 U.S. 57, 82 S. Ct. 159, 7 L. Ed. 2d 118 (1961), considered the question where defendant, a woman, had been convicted of second degree murder and appealed, assigning her trial before an all-male jury as violative of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Florida statute provided, in effect, that women could serve, if they desired. The Court held: If it is a reasonable classification to exclude all women except those who desire to serve, how can it be said that the total exclusion is not a "reasonable classification?" In other words, how can any classification of jurors by sex be unconstitutional, if some classification is permitted? *869 We are in accord with the following statement of the Supreme Court of North Carolina, in State v. Emery, 224 N.C. 581, 31 S.E.2d 858, 157 A.L.R. 441 (1944): The general law as to classification by sex is stated in 16A C.J.S. Constitutional Law § 544 at 480-482 (1956): See also, In re Grilli, 110 Misc. 45, 179 N.Y.S. 795, affirmed 192 App.Div. 885, 181 N.Y.S. 938 (1920). Even the Federal Courts and Congress considered the Fourteenth Amendment as not bestowing upon women the right to serve upon juries. The Federal Statute, United States Code Annotated Title 28 section 1861, was so worded that women could not serve in Federal Courts as jurors unless the law of the state where the court was being held so permitted, and, in order to make them eligible to serve in such courts everywhere, the statute was amended September 9, 1957, eighty-nine years after adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment. In conclusion, we are convinced that the fixing of qualification for juries is a legislative matter and that, if it is necessary to resort to classification, such by sex is reasonable. As further bearing upon the legislative prerogative, we understand there has been introduced in our legislature a bill to permit women to serve on juries. We are unwilling to take from the legislature that which the people have entrusted to it. We, therefore, reverse the case and remand it to the court from whence it came. Reversed and remanded. All Justices concur, except the Chief Justice, who dissents. ETHRIDGE, Chief Justice (dissenting): Mississippi Code Annotated section 1762 (1956) completely and absolutely excludes women from jury service in this state. The question is whether this total exclusion of women from jury service is an invalid classification, in violation of the due process and equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment, United States Constitution, and Section 14, Mississippi Constitution. I think it is. The Fourteenth Amendment prohibits prejudicial disparities before the law for all citizens, including women. Over half the population of the United States consists of women. In Lee County, Mississippi, where appellee was indicted, there is a total of 23,839 persons who are twenty-one years of age and over. Of these 12,651 are women, and 11,188 are men. Lee County has 7,529 male registered voters, and 6,884 female registered voters. The record reflects that from 1927 to the present, no women have been drawn to serve or have served on either a petit or grand jury of the Circuit Court of Lee County. After hearing this evidence on a motion to quash the indictment, the circuit court correctly concluded: In White v. Crook, 251 F. Supp. 401 (U.S.D.C.Ala. 1966), a three-judge federal district court held that the Alabama statute completely excluding women from jury service was invalid because it denied equal protection of the laws. Since White v. Crook, only two states in the Union have statutes completely and absolutely excluding women from jury service South Carolina and Mississippi. *871 Mississippi was one of the first states to emancipate women from the medieval, common-law limitations on their right to own and control property. This occurred before the Civil War. The Nineteenth Amendment, effective in 1920, prohibited denial of their right to vote. Equal participation in the administration of justice is also a fundamental right of citizenship. Assuredly this would include the right to serve on juries. The majority opinion concludes that whether women shall serve on juries is a legislative question. However, that does not answer the issue of whether absolute denial on the basis of sex only is a denial of due process and equal protection of the laws. Jury service is not just a privilege, but a form of participation in the processes of government. It is a responsibility and right possessed by all citizens, regardless of sex. Certainly a statute completely and absolutely excluding over one-half the population of this state from eligibility for jury service is a classification without any reasonable basis. For physiologic and other reasons, a state may validly grant women an elective exemption from jury service. But Mississippi wholly denies them the right to participate as members of juries. A classification must have some reasonable basis in order to comply with due process and equal protection. A complete exclusion of half the population with no rational basis for the classification, other than sex, is a denial to the women citizens of this state of their constitutional right. The cases cited and quoted in the controlling opinion do not decide this issue, in my opinion. Hoyt v. State of Florida, 368 U.S. 57, 82 S. Ct. 159, 7 L. Ed. 2d 118 (1961), involved a Florida statute permitting but not requiring women to serve on juries. The following statement in Hoyt clearly predicts the constitutional fate of an absolute exclusion of women from jury service: In short, I think that a state's complete exclusion of women from jury service is so arbitrary and unreasonable as to be an unconstitutional deprivation of due process and equal protection of the laws. A holding to this effect should be prospective only in its application. Linkletter v. Walker, 381 U.S. 618, 85 S. Ct. 1731, 14 L. Ed. 2d 601 (1965). For these reasons, I respectfully dissent from the majority opinion.