after making the above statement of the case, delivered the opinion of the court.
That the statutory provisions for a struck jury are not in conflict with the constitution of New Jersey is for this court foreclosed by the decision of the highest court of the State.
Louisiana
v. Pilsbury,
The first ten amendments to the Federal Constitution contain no restrictions on the powers of the State, but were intended to operate solely on Federal Government.
Barron
v.
Baltimore,
*175
The State has full control over the procedure in its courts, both in civil and criminal cases, subject only to the qualification that such procedure must not work a denial of fundamental rights or conflict with specific and applicable provisions of the Federal Constitution.
Ex parte
Reggel,
The State is not tied down by any provision of the Federal Constitution to the practice and procedure which existed at the common law. Subject to the limitations heretofore named it may avail itself of the wisdom gathered by the experience of the century to make such changes as may be necessary. For instance, while at the common law an indictment by the grand jury was an essential preliminary to trial for felony, it is within the power of a State to abolish the grand jury entirely and proceed by information.
Hurtado
v.
California,
In providing for a trial by a struck jury, empanelled in accordance with the provisions of the New Jersey statute, no fundamental right of the defendant is trespassed upon. The manner of selection is one calculated to secure an impartial jury, and the purpose of criminal procedure is not to enable the defendant to select jurors, but to secure an impartial jury. “The accused cannot complain if he is still tried by an impartial jury. He can demand nothing more.
Northern Pacific Railroad
v.
Herbert,
*176
Due process and equal protection of the laws are guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment, and this amendment operates to restrict the powers of the State, and if trial by a struck jury conflicts with either of these specific provisions it cannot be sustained. A perfectly satisfactory definition of due process may perhaps not be easily stated. In
Hurtado
v. California,
It is said that the equal protection of the laws was denied because the defendant was not given the same number of peremptory challenges that he would have had in a trial before an ordinary jury. In the latter case he would have been entitled under the statute to twenty peremptory challenges, but when a struck jury is ordered he is given only five.
*177
But that a State may make different arrangements for trials under different circumstances of even the same class of offences, has been already settled by this court. Thus, in
Missouri
v. Lewis,
It is true that here there is no territorial distribution, but in all cases in which a struck jury is ordered the same number of challenges is permitted, as similarly in all cases in which the trial is-by an ordinary jury. Either party, State or defendant, may apply for a struck jury, and the matter is one which is determined by the court in the exercise of a sound discretion. There is no mere arbitrary power in this respect, any more than in the granting or refusing of a continuance. The fact that in one case the plaintiff or defendant is awarded a continuance and in another is refused does not make in either a denial of the equal protection of the laws. That in any given case the discretion of the court in awarding a trial by a struck jury was improperly exercised may perhaps present a matter for consideration on appeal, but it amounts to nothing more.
Perceiving no error in the record, the judgment is
Affirmed.
