Court Opinion

ID: 9639866
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 16:50:29.044655+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:22.624249
License: Public Domain

WOODLEY, Judge
(dissenting).
There is no claim or contention that any objectionable juror was summoned or served on the jury, and there is no showing as to whether or not the peremptory challenges allowed appellant and the state were exhausted by either. No effort was made by attachment or otherwise to have the absent jurors brought in. Admittedly the central jury panel was exhausted.
In the Steadman case, cited in the majority opinion, the defendant was on trial for an offense less than capital, and the formation of the jury was governed by Title 8, Chapter 4, of the Code of Criminal Procedure, Art. 626 C.C.P. not being applicable.
Under the applicable statutes, challenges could be required though only 12 names remained on the list, and such challenges were made by striking or erasing the name of the juror challenged or set aside from the list. Arts. 629 to 638 C.C.P.
*62Article 638 C.C.P. deals with the completion of the jury in the event the required number do not remain on the list. It provides that when, by peremptory challenges, the jury is left incomplete, the court shall direct other jurors “to be drawn or summoned” to complete the jury.
Under these statutes, this court held in the Steadman case that Art. 2118 R.C.S. required that the “other jurors” necessary to complete the jury should have been drawn from the wheel.
It would appear that we failed in the Steadman case to distinguish between the completion of a particular jury, after a number have been selected, and the completion or filling of the panel from which a jury is to be drawn. The reason for the rule as applied in the Steadman case disappears where a full list of jurors from which the jury may be completed is required such as by Art. 626 C.C.P., applicable in Bexar County.
In the case before us the jury was selected pursuant to the procedure provided in Title 8, Chapter 4 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Ten jurors were selected and sworn and there were no more jurors in the central panel, the list of jurors drawn from the jury wheel for service during the week having been exhausted.
I cannot agree that the legislature intended that jurors sworn to try a capital felony should be held together until the judge in charge of the general panel, if he is available, orders additional jurors drawn from the wheel and while the sheriff seeks out these particular jurors.
It is my view that the term “and such additional talesmen as may be ordered by the court,” as used in Art. 601a V.A.C.C.P., means that where 100 or more jurors are drawn as regular jurors for the week, the list so drawn from the wheel may be substituted for the venire list authorized by Art. 591 V.A.C.C.P. and, in the event such list is exhausted and the jury is not complete, the court may order talesmen to be summoned by the sheriff from which to complete the jury, in the manner provided in Art. 596 V.A.C.C.P., which reads as follows:
“Art 596. Ordering talesmen.
“On failure from any cause to select a jury from those sum*63moned upon the special venire, the court shall order the sheriff to summon any number of men that it may deem advisable, for the formation of the jury.”