Court Opinion

ID: 9531427
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:10:48.495359+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:27.070256
License: Public Domain

MR. JUSTICE ANGSTMAN
dissenting:
*361I concede that this court should hesitate to sanction departure in a material manner from the statutory method of drawing a jury. The danger lies in the fact that if departure be tolerated in one respect then there is invitation to deviate in others and thus the statutory method be frittered away.
I think though that under the circumstances here involved we should uphold the method used by the trial judge. He informs us under oath that the reason for this departure was as follows:
“That the respondents and each of them attempted to acquire the added 15,000 capsules which would be identical with the 30,000 capsules which the respondents had and which would be necessary to obtain strict compliance with the hereinbefore cited statute and were unable to do so.
“That the respondents are informed and believe and therefore allege that it is impossible for them to obtain the necessary forty-five to fifty thousand identical black capsules and to prepare them for drawing in sufficient time for the court to have a jury term in the year 1959.”
There was no suggestion as stated in the majority opinion that strict compliance was departed from because of expense of the capsules.
As I see it some provisions of our statute, with respect to drawing juries, are directory merely. Thus it seems to me that if white capsules were used instead of black ones no one could complain and yet there would be a departure from the statutory method.
I do not believe that any party to either the civil or criminal cases about to be tried before the jury as it has been drawn would have any basis for complaint. As to them there would have been no prejudice.
It is merely a technical departure rom the letter o the statute which could not be said to affect any substantial right of a litigant since it no way affected the obtaining of a fair and impartial jury.