Court Opinion

ID: 9643668
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 20:37:02.663494+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:05:16.794607
License: Public Domain

ON MOTION FOR REHEARING.
MORRISON, Judge.
Appellant takes us severely to task for what he contends are statements not supported by the record. He says that as counsel for appellant he received no list of the venire with the sheriff’s return thereon. The appellant was on bail, and, according to the terms of Article 601, C. C. P., it is incumbent upon appellant or his counsel to make application to the clerk of the court in which the case is pending for a list of the persons summoned for service.
We must now address ourselves to the task of determining if a list of the persons so summoned was on file and available to counsel one day prior to the calling of this case on October 31, 1952.
The sheriff testified that he received the venire list on October 4. He stated further:
“Q. And you made your return on October 7th? A. Yes, sir.”
Further on he testified:
“Q. . . . you have here that all of them were served by October 7, 1952. A. That all of them were notified by then.
“Q. How did you notify them — by mailing a card? A. Mailing them a postal card, yes, sir.
“Q. It was not be registered mail? A. No, sir. Some of them I served in person.
“Q. Do you know how many you served in person? A. Quite a few.
“Q. Well, about how many? A. Oh, I wouldn’t know off hand, but several of them.
“Q. Well, would you hazard a guess on how many you served personally?" A. About a dozen.
“Q. About 12 out of 80? A. Yes, sir.
“Q. And the rest of them you served by postal card? A. Yes, sir.”
*140Much of the confusion in this case stems from the fact that all of those concerned with the trial thereof seem to have been laboring under a misconception of the present law relating to the sheriff’s return.
Prior to the amendment of Article 597, C. C. P., in 1951, an accused was entitled to one full day in which to examine a list of the veniremen who had been summoned in person. If the sheriff had been unable to summon any number of veniremen, !,then the accused did not concern himself with determining if those unsummoned were acceptable to him.
Since the above amendment, the accused is still entitled to his full day, but for all practical purposes he must determine if all those on the venire list are acceptable to him. This is so because the sheriff may mail a postcard to the last known address of the veniremen, make his return showing this fact, and file the same with the clerk. When this is done he has complied with the law. Neither the sheriff nor the accused knows how many ,,of the veniremen will receive their notice.
The efforts of the sheriff in the case at bar to follow up his postcard notice with an effort to personally serve those to whom he had mailed cards was commendable but not required since the amendment of Article 597, supra. Hence, the “amended” return, in which the sheriff set forth his diligence, was not required by law and cannot, therefore, constitute the basis for a reversal of this cause. The appellant had one full day in which to examine the venire list which the sheriff had summoned by mail, and that is all the present law accords him. In the case at bar, there is no showing as to which manner of summoning the court directed. In such a case, we hold that the sheriff might employ either or both methods set forth in the statute.
We have again examined the bills of exception relating to appellant’s challenge for cause of certain prospective jurors. When tested in the light of our holding in Low v. State, 156 Tex. Cr. R. 34, 238 S. W. 2d 769, the prospective jurors were not subject to the challenge.
Remaining convinced that we properly disposed of this cause originally, the appellant’s motion for rehearing is overruled.