Ammons v. State

Citations

• 65 Fla. 166
• 61 So. 496

Syllabus

<p>Jury Trial—Discharging Panels—Selecting New Panels.</p> <p>1. A defendant, as a matter of right, is not entitled to have any particular jurors to try his case. The right of peremptory challenge is a right to reject, and not a right to select.</p> <p>2. The law does not require that the defendant in a criminal case should be personally present in court when an order is made for a special venire from which to complete or to select a jury for the trial of his case; when the names to constitute such special venire are drawn from the jury box; when the venire is issued therefor; when said special venire is returned by the sheriff, nor when the names constituting such venire are called to ascertain whether or not they have been summoned, or are in attendance upon the court, or whether they are disqualified or subject to excuse, none of such proceedings being “steps in or stages of the trial,” within the meaning of the rule requiring the defendant’s personal presence, but all being ministerial preliminaries merely, in which the defendant could have no voice or participation.</p> <p>3. The policy of the law, in all cases in which jurors are empanelled to try the issue, is to secure men for that responsible duty whose minds are wholly free from bias or prejudice either for or against the accused, or for or against either party in civil cases. The authority of the trial court in superintending the making up of the panel is not limited to a decision of the strict legal qualifications of a juror; it may, in the exercise of a judicial discretion, excuse a juror, who, though not legally disqualified, yet has such relations to one of the litigants as might reasonably fill the other with apprehension as to his fairness. A trial court in empanelling a jury to serve in a particular case should have and has a very extensive and almost unlimited discretion in discharging a person called to serve on the jury who might, in the opinion of the court, not make a fit and competent person