Page:Stewart v. State.pdf/9

Rh guilt or innocence of the prisoner from rumor, but it had left no bias or prejudice on his mind for or against the prisoner. The court decided the juror to be competent, and the State elected to take him; but the defendant challenged him for cause. and insisted that his competency should be submitted to and determined by triers; the court decided that the defendant had no right to have his competency so determined, and holding him to be competent, required the defendant to accept him or challenge him peremptorily, and so the defendant challenged him. When the jury were empanneled and sworn, on proceeding with the trial, the defendant objected to the reading of the indictment to the jury, it being a part of the record certified from the Clark circuit court upon the change of venue, upon the ground that it did not appear to have been found by any organized or lawful grand jury of Clark county. The court overruled the objection, and the trial proceeded. The jury found the defendant guilty of murder in the second degree, and, in accordance with their verdict, was sentenced to twenty-one years confinement in the penitentiary. The defendant filed his motion in arrest of judgment, renewing his objection that the indictment did not appear to have been found by any legally constituted grand jury.

We have stated only so much of the proceedings as may be necessary to a correct understanding of the various objections taken by the defendant, all of which were reserved by exceptions during the progress of the trial. The record contains a full statement of the evidence on the trial and the instructions of the court, but no exceptions were taken in the court below, and none are argued here as to the correctness of the verdict and judgment upon the merits.

I. One of the clauses of the 11th section of the declaration of rights, is to the effect that, in criminal prosecutions by indictment or presentment, the accused has a right to a speedy public trial by an impartial jury of the country or district in which the crime shall have been committed. This provision, and all those of a similar character, are declaratory of the sense of the people conconcerning great fundamental principles designed as limitations