Court Opinion

ID: 9670949
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:28:43.167962+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:07.390704
License: Public Domain

On the Merits
Appellant complains by assignment of error that the trial court lost jurisdiction of the motion and discontinuance ensued because on July 9, 1962, the date the motion was heard and submitted, the trial court failed “to make and enter some ruling on the motion for a new trial or some order continuing the motion for a new trial to a future date.”
The trial court entered an order in writing on July 28, 1962, a copy of which appears, supra.
The undisputed recitation by the trial court,. supra, that the motion was heard on the appointed date, July 9, 1962, and taken under consideration, we take to be true. When the motion was heard and submitted as stated by the trial court, the issue presented was in the breast of the court until September 12, 1962, when a judgment on the motion was duly entered.
Under such circumstances as the record here presents a written order of submission of the motion for consideration or advisement on the part of the court at the time of submission, although advisable for clarity of the record, was not necessary to preserve the integrity or life of the motion. Nor was an order of continuance necessary. The demands of law were met when the trial judge took *315submission of the motion, and later, prior to judgment, let the record show such submission at the time fixed by prior order of continuance.
This appeal presents for judicial ascertainment the intention of the legislature in enacting §§ S3 and 54, Title 30, Code of Alabama, 1940. These sections are as follows:
“ § 53. Peremptory challenges.— Each party has the right to challenge four of the jury peremptorily in civil causes.
“ § 54. Struck jury. — In all civil actions triable by jury, either party may demand a struck jury, and must thereupon be furnished by the clerk with a list of twenty-four jurors in attendance upon the court, from which a jury must be obtained by the parties or their attorneys alternately striking one from the list until twelve are stricken off, the party demanding the jury commencing; provided, that in all judicial circuits having not more than two judges, the court shall require to be made two lists of all the jurors in attendance upon the court, who are competent to try the case, and not engaged in the trial of some other case, which list shall in no event contain less than twenty-four jurors, from which a jury must be obtained by the parties or their attorneys alternately striking one from the list until only twelve remain on the list, the party demanding the jury commencing; and the jury thus obtained must not be challenged for any cause, except bias or interest as to the particular case.”
It appears from the transcript of the proceedings in the trial court that the circuit clerk presented the parties with a list bearing the names of thirty-one qualified jurors, from which, over the objections of appellee, accompanied by his demand for a struck jury, the trial judge allowed appellant four peremptory challenges, pursuant to § 53, Title 30, Code 1940, supra. Appellee declined to assert any peremptory challenges. The trial judge, after the peremptory challenges on the part of appellant, told the parties “to go ahead and strike the jury.” The parties proceeded to strike as directed from the list of jurors remaining after the peremptory challenges. Two names were removed from the list by agreement of the parties.
The trial court, on motion by appellee for a new trial, determined that it had committed error in permitting the challenges over the objection of plaintiff, and in requiring them to strike from the depicted list; hence the court granted appellee’s motion for a new trial. Appellant (defendant below) appeals from this judgment.
Neither of the parties to this appeal has cited any case from Alabama, or from any other state, which in our judgment decides the exact issue here presented. Our attention has been called in brief to a very informative and elucidating article entitled, “Selecting the Jury in Criminal Cases— Some Common Law Aspects,” by M. Clinton McGee, Associate Professor of Law, University of Alabama, published in Vol. V, Number 2 (Spring 1953), Alabama Law Review, p. 213, which we have read with much interest and thought. This article presents a history of peremptory challenges, both in civil and criminal cases. The author also discusses the procedural application of the rule for such challenges (both civil and criminal) in Alabama. Provision for peremptory challenges in criminal cases no longer obtains in Alabama. The provision was abrogated in 1909.
Our research reveals that § 53, supra, was enacted by the legislature of Alabama on December 21, 1820. The statute appears in Acts of Alabama, 1820, Second Session, Section 1, at page 3. The Act reads: “That in all jury trials either party shall have the right to a peremptory challenge of four of the jury.”
With the exception of a slight transposition of words, and with confinement to civil causes, the Act has been brought forward in all our Codes.
*316We find that § 54, Code of Alabama, 1940, supra, has its progenitor in Acts of Alabama, 1840 — 41, Called Session, § 52, p. 174. It was approved on January 9, 1841. The Act at that time read as follows:
“In all civil causes, sounding in damages merely, or where the amount in controversy shall exceed one hundred dollars, either party, at his election, shall be furnished with a list of twenty-four jurors in attendance on such court, from which a jury shall be obtained by the parties alternately striking one from the list until twelve shall be stricken off, the plaintiff commencing (and the jury thus obtained, shall not be further challenged, for any cause.)”
The Act has been amended by legislative action so that it has application to all civil actions instead of actions sounding in damages merely, or when the amount in controversy exceeds one hundred dollars.
So it appears that prior to 1841, parties litigant were remitted to peremptory challenges of four each in selection of a jury.
It is our observation that the legislature, by the enactment last aforequoted, desired to and did provide another method of selecting juries in certain civil cases. Any party to a suit within the category could demand a struck jury from a list of twenty-four names on the jury list — no more nor less than twenty-four names. Brilliant Coal Co. v. Barton, 203 Ala. 38, 81 So. 828(2). Parenthetically, we call attention to an amendment now added to § 54, supra, which limits application of the holding in the Barton case, supra, to judicial circuits having not more than two judges.
It is to be noted that § 54, supra, provides nothing more than peremptory challenges that are asserted by striking instead of oral procedure. Instead of four peremptory challenges, each party when proceeding under § 54, supra, obtains six challenges when striking from twenty-four names on the list. In circuits with not more than two judges, each party may obtain more than six challenges. The striking must be done alternately, while peremptory-challenges are not so restricted. We pre-termit any reference to circuits which have-general laws with local application governing the selection of juries if in conflict with §§ 53 and 54, supra.
We think that the legislature in providing for struck juries intended that this method, when demanded by any party to the suit, should supersede the right to' peremptory challenges authorized by § 53. This method, of course, as also in peremptory challenges, presupposes lawful demand for a jury trial. We are also of the opinion that in the absence of a demand for a struck jury, the parties must proceed under § 53 in civil causes to select a jury. They cannot in such selection proceed under both §§53 and 54, supra.
By proceeding either under §§ 53 or 54, supra, much confusion will be avoided. We can surmise situations under fusion of these two statutes whereby the trial court would be greatly perplexed when and how the peremptory challenges could' be made in the light of the statute for struck juries. Many questions of procedure, if the legislature intended a fusion of the two methods of challenges, were not made clear. We-are in part guided by this-lack of clarity to the belief and opinion that the legislature intended an alternate method of selection. The procedure under § 54 is definitive and clear.
The diligent attorneys for appellee contacted at least three eminent, experienced and active trial judges — Judge Paul of Elba, Judge Thagard of Greenville, and Judge Hildreth of Eutaw — to find out if they had ever had any experience with a demand for peremptory challenges, and sought their view on the subject. Answers of these judges appear in the record. They were presented to the trial judge in this case, we presume, at the time of the hearing on the motion for a new trial. All three wrote that the question had never been raised in ,their court, but 'in their opinion the methods were alternate.
*317It is probably the experience of most circuit judges that the lawyers as a matter of practice have accepted the methods as alternate procedures. We find one case, where a different situation was presented. In the case of Birmingham Water Works v. Barksdale, 227 Ala. 354, 150 So. 139, both parties announced ready and a jury was placed in the trial box. The plaintiff’s attorney stated that he was satisfied with the jury in the box. Defendant did not demand a struck jury, but reserved the right to a legal challenge as authorized under the law. The court then informed the plaintiff that if he wanted a struck jury he would give it to him — that he had not waived it. Defendant excepted to the ruling. This court held there was no abuse of discretion in allowing the plaintiff a struck jury. It seems that the question of a right to both peremptory challenges and a struck jury was not presented.
The trial court was free from error in granting plaintiff’s motion for a new trial because of its error in permitting defendant to have four peremptory challenges over objection of plaintiff after his demand for a struck jury. The judgment of the trial court is affirmed.
The foregoing opinion was prepared by Bowen W. Simmons, Supernumerary Circuit Judge, and was adopted by the court as its opinion.
Affirmed.
LIVINGSTON, C. J., and LAWSON, GOODWYN and COLEMAN, JJ., concur.