State v. Berkeley
State v. Berkeley
Opinion of the Court
The opinion of the Court was delivered by
The defendant was tried for murder, but by the verdict of the jury was found guilty of manslaughter. After conviction, the Circuit Judge passed sentence upon the prisoner. From this judgment the defendant has appealed to this Court. This appeal is intended to raise three questions:
First. The constitutionality of the jury law enacted in the year 1900 by the General Assembly of this State. Second. The validity of the indictment as found by the grand jury, which had upon its panel a member thereof who was an alien. Third. That the petit jury was drawn ini accordance with the provisions of the said jury law enacted in the year 1900, and was, therefore, invalid.
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Now as to the question, is it constitutional ? By its terms it is a general act. Its application is to all counties in this State which are blessed with a city or cities of 40,000 inhabitants. Laws are not enacted alone for the -immediate circumstances of a State. It is the part of wisdom to look ahead. To lay foundations upon which its people may expect in the future to build. No doubt the capital of the State — our beautiful and progressive Columbia — may soon fill the requirements as to population. So, too, of the cities of the Piedmont — Greenville and Spartanburg — they may soon find themselves with the requisite population required by this act to be admitted to its privileges. While it is true that the county of Charleston, alone of our counties, has a city of 40,000 inhabitants, yet it is not named in the act; it should be allowed to enjoy its advantages of superior numbers in population. I do not see that this act of 1900 contravenes the provisions of art.. III., sec. 34, of our Constitution, which forbids the General Assembly “to enact local or *196 special laws concerning any of the following subjects or for any of-the following purposes, to wit: I. To change the names of persons or places * * * VIII. To summon and empanel grand or petit jurors * * * XI. In all other cases where a general law can be made applicable, no- special law shall be enacted. XII. The General Assembly shall forthwith enact general laws concerning said subjects for said purposes which shall be uniform in their operations: Provided, That nothing contained in this section shall prohibit the General Assembly from enacting special provisions in general laws.” The mistake, as I take it, made by the appellant, is in assuming that because the county of Charleston happens to fill the requirements while just now no other county in the State does so, that no other counties in the future will do so. If It was an impossibility or an improbability that other counties would do so, there then might be some good ground for calling this a local law. The truth is, that if the cities of Columbia or Greenville or Spartanburg, the first named especially, could draw into their population the population lying around them and almost ready to be incorporated in their city limits, we would see at least four counties in this State with a city of 40,000 inhabitants. A Constitution is obliged to provide for the future. There can be no procrustean rule in a Constitution. It must provide for an expansion far beyond the present environments. A study of the development in the territory and population of cities of this great union of States in the last forty years is obliged to bring home to us this truth. The act is general in its terms. So I hold the act in question constitutional, and these grounds of appeal are overruled.
It is the judgment of this Court, that the appeal be dismissed, and that the prosecution be remitted to the court of general sessions for Charleston County to enforce the sentence already passed herein.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- State v. Berkeley.
- Cited By
- 10 cases
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- Syllabus
- 1. Jurors — Constitution.—The Act, 23 Stat., 320, providing for drawing jurors in counties containing 40,000 inhabitants or more, is an independent act and not in contravention of art. III., sec. 34, Con. 1895. 2. Ibid. — Grand Jury — Indictments—Alien.—A true bill found by a grand jury on which there was an alien, no objection being made before pleading to indictment, and fact not being then known to prisoner, is a good indictment, especially when appellant does not show that there were on the panel only twelve jurors.