Wynehamer v People.pdf - The University of Texas at Austin

ALBANY, MARCH, 1856. 427Wyneliamer against The People.private right, not to restrict it. When jury trial was givenfor the first time in such cases, it was bestowed because thelegislature desired to extend its protecting influences, andwhen afterwards the new constitution was adopted, jurytrial, in cases where it was then accustomed, received thesanction and protection of the organic law. Writings areto be construed as to the time when they are made; and" heretofore," in this clause, means before 1846, and cannot,to limit its meaning, be carried back to 1777, and confinedto the cases which, at that earlier period, were triable byjury.This act provides that offences prosecuted personallyagainst the offender, and for which he is punishable byfine, by forfeiture and sometimes by imprisonment, shall betried by any one of numerous inferior magistrates, eitherwithout a jury at all, or by a jury of six men, with verypeculiar qualifications. (Laws of 1855, chap. 231, §§ 5, 16.)This is not what the constitution means by jury trial. ( Crugerv. Hudson JZ. Railroad, 2 Kern., 190.) That must be, withinthe terms of the constitution, a jury of twelve men. Theact is entirely inconsistent with 1he idea that the magistrateis to let the defendant to bail, to answer at anothercriminal court. Its direction is that he is not to take theexamination of the defendant, but is to proceed immediatelyto a trial, and he is to give judgment, and from his judgmentan appeal lies. He can, according to the act, proceed onlyfor the purpose of determining upon the gvilt or innocenceoi the accused, and constitutionally this power could notbe conferred upon him; the whole provision, which was madeonly with a view to this kind of trials, and not for the purposeof holding the offender to answer elsewhere, must fall.It follows, that the act conferred no jurisdiction upontlie magistrate to try the defendant, and that the judgmentof the supreme court, reversing that of the justice, must beaffirmed.