16 A. 900 | R.I. | 1889
The defendant, who has been convicted of keeping a place for the sale of intoxicating liquors in violation of the law, asks for a new trial because one of the jurors who rendered the verdict against him was a constable of the town of Cumberland, and as such specially charged with the duty of enforcing the laws for the suppression of intemperance. The place which the defendant is alleged to have kept, however, was not in Cumberland, which was the precinct of the juror as constable, but in Lincoln, and we do not see that the office of constable is intrinsically incompatible with jury service. The defendant contends that the juror was disqualified because being a constable he was exempt from service as juror by statute. The statute, Pub. Stat. R.I. cap. 200, § 1, declares that "all persons who are qualified to vote upon any proposition to impose a tax or for the expenditure of money in any town shall be liable to serve as jurors, except as hereinafter provided." The second section begins, "The following persons shall be exempted from service as jurors, namely," and goes on to specify the persons descriptively, including constables. The defendant contends that constables are thus excepted from among those who are qualified. Taking the language of the first section, however, the persons specified in the second section are not excepted from among those who are qualified but from among those who are liable
to serve, the exception being not by way of disqualification but of exemption or privilege, as still more clearly appears by the language of the second section. This is the view which has always prevailed in practice so far as we are informed, and which was expressly adopted by this court in State v. O'Brien,
New trial denied and petition dismissed.