Opinion ID: 2222834
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Exclusion of teachers.

Text: As to the exclusion of teachers it must be noted again that there is no statutory exemption for teachers from jury service under sec. 255.02, Stats. Here, the teachers were not given a special exemption by court order under sec. 255.02 (3) (b). While teachers may also be excused at their own request under sec. 255.02 (2) (a), this was not done here. There is no authority for jury commissioners systematically to exclude all teachers. While the United States Supreme Court acknowledged in Thiel v. Southern Pacific Co . [39] that a judge would be authorized to exclude individual laborers for hardship, all such laborers could not be excluded. We see no essential difference between the exclusion of day laborers as a group and the exclusion of teachers. Neither is valid. Although the exclusion of all teachers absent a specific court-ordered exemption under sec. 255.02 (3) (b), Stats., is invalid, in this particular case the exclusion of teachers must be sustained because the defendant did not specifically challenge the exclusion of teachers until after the petit jury for the defendant's case had been impaneled. This is too late. It is reasonable that there should be some limitation on the time at which a jury array can be challenged and once a particular jury has been impaneled it is reasonable to conclude that challenges to the array from which the jury was picked have been waived. Section 270.52 provides: Irregularities in venires, etc., immaterial. No irregularity in any writ of venire facias or in the drawing, summoning, returning or impaneling of petit jurors shall be sufficient to set aside a verdict unless the party making the objection was injured by the irregularity or unless the objection was made before the returning of the verdict. This statute refers to the challenging of a jury that has been impaneled and all of the irregularities referred to concern the process by which the jury has actually been impaneled. Where such irregularities are contended, the statute provides that the objection can be made at any time before the returning of the verdict. This statute does not allow a challenge to a general jury array at such a late stage as was attempted here. In challenging a jury array, once a systematic discrimination in the array has been established and insufficiently explained, it follows that the jury list is invalid and this is true without a showing of prejudice. This was unequivocally stated by the United States Supreme Court in Hill v. Texas, [40] an appeal from the Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas which had affirmed a lower court rape conviction: ... Where, as in this case, timely objection has laid bare a discrimination in the selection of grand jurors, the conviction cannot stand, because the constitution prohibits the procedure by which it was obtained. [41] Although the trial court was in error here in requiring defendant to show prejudice to him of any systematic and discriminatory exclusion of potential jurors this made no difference because the only exclusions which were objected to by a timely motionstudents and young peoplewere not invalid in this case under the circumstances. By the Court. Order affirmed.