Opinion
December Term, 1822.
Freeholders of another State, owning no freehold in North Carolina are not qualified to serve on a jury in this State.
SCIRE FACIAS, under the act of 1806 to secure creditors against fraudulent and secret conveyances of property by insolvent debtors. On the trial of the issues below there was a deficiency of jurors of the original panel and the sheriff summoned of the bystanders as talesmen two who were freeholders of Virginia, but not of North Carolina. They were challenged by the defendant as incompetent jurors, being citizens of Virginia and owning no freehold in North Carolina, but the court disallowed the challenge, and they were sworn and impaneled on the trial of the issues. The jury found the issues in favor of the plaintiffs, and judgment was rendered that the sheriff expose to public sale the houses and lots in Murfreesboro, which were bid, off by the defendant upon a secret trust for the benefit of the debtor, one Howell Jones. From this judgment the defendant appealed to this Court. There were various other points, which it is deemed unnecessary to report, as in the opening of the case the Court directed the counsel of the appellant to confine themselves to the point stated above.
Gaston and Seawell for appellant.
Hogg for appellee.
The several acts of Assembly on the qualifications (213) of jurors, as far back as they can be traced, seem to warrant the position that talesmen shall be freeholders of the same description with the original panel; and in practice it has always been considered that a freeholder in another State only is not qualified. If our own laws do not permit our own citizens who are not freeholders in this State to serve on a jury, it cannot be considered as the denial of a right or privilege to the citizens of another State, who are not freeholders here, to consider them disqualified. For, upon the supposition that the right to serve on a jury here was claimed by the citizen of another State as a privilege or immunity, he must show that it is enjoyed by our own citizens not otherwise qualified than himself; otherwise it would be a claim, not of privileges equal to but greater than those of our own citizens. As the exception was taken by the defendant and overruled, there must be a
PER CURIAM. New trial.
(214)