Plea and Issue.

Q. -What pleas may be made to an arraignment? A.—(1) A plea to the jurisdiction; (2) A demurrer ; (3) A plea in abatement; (4) A special plea in bar; or (5) The general issue. A defendant cannot in turn go through the whole of these pleas; not more than one plea can be pleaded to an indictment for misdemeanor, or a criminal information. In felonies, if the accused pleads in abatement he may afterwards, if the plea is adjudged against him, plead the general issue of not guilty.

Q. What is a plea to the jurisdiction?

A.—A plea to the jurisdiction is where an indictment is taken before a court that hath no cognizance of the offence, as if a man be indicted for treason at the quarter sessions. In such or in similar cases, he may except to the jurisdiction of the court without answering at all to the crime alleged, but a formal plea to the jurisdiction is of rare occurrence, it being competent to a defendant to bring forward this sort of objection in some cases by way of demurrer, or by motion in arrest of judgment; in others under the general issue. (4 Steph. Comm. p. 399.)

Q. What is a demurrer, and what is its effect? A.—A demurrer arises when the facts, as alleged in the indictment or information, are allowed to be true, but the person accused takes exception to the sufficiency of the charge on the face of it, as if he insists that the facts stated are no felony, treason, or whatever the crime is alleged to be. Thus, for instance, if a man be indicted for feloniously stealing a greyhound, which is an animal not the subject of larceny at

common law, and the stealing whereof is not made felony by any statute, but only a misdemeanor, in this case the party indicted may demur to the indictment, denying it to be felony, though he confesses the act of taking the animal. If on demurrer to an indictment the point of law be adjudged for the defendant, and the objection be on a matter of substance, the judgment is, that he be dismissed and discharged, if the objection be merely formal, then that the indictment be quashed. On the other hand, if the judgment be against the defendant, and the offence for which he is indicted be a misdemeanor or a felony, but not capital, such judgment, according to the better authorities, is final. (See Har. Crim. Law, 382.)

Q. What is a plea in abatement ?

A.-A plea in abatement or dilatory plea is founded on some matter of fact extraneous to the indictment, tending to show that it is defective in point of form, and such plea has principally occurred in the case of a misnomer, i. e., a wrong name or a false addition to the defendant. But by 7 Geo. IV. c. 64, s. 19, no indictment or information shall be abated by reason of any dilatory plea of misnomer; but if the court shall be satisfied, by affidavit or otherwise, of the truth of such plea, it shall forthwith cause the indictment or information to be amended according to the truth, and shall call upon the party to plead thereto, and shall proceed as if no such dilatory plea had been pleaded.

Q. What are special pleas in bar?

A. A special plea in bar is one which goes to the merits of the indictment, and gives a reason why the

prisoner ought to be discharged from the prosecution. These are principally of four kinds :-a former acquittal; a former conviction; a former attainder; or a pardon.

The plea of autrefois acquit, or a former acquittal, is grounded on this universal maxim of the common law of England, that no man is to be brought into jeopardy more than once for the same offence; and hence it is allowed as a consequence, that when a man is once fairly found not guilty upon an indictment or other prosecution before any court having a competent jurisdiction of the offence, he may plead such acquittal in bar of any subsequent accusation for the same crime. But if a man be indicted as accessory and acquitted, that acquittal will be no bar to an indictment as principal nor è converso.

The plea of autrefois convict, or a former conviction (whether judgment was ever given or not), for the same identical crime is also a good plea in bar to an indictment; and this depends upon the same principle as the former, that no man ought to be twice brought into danger for one and the same crime, and it is governed in general by the same rules. And if the former conviction was for a capital offence, and followed by an actual judgment of death, the defendant may resort to

The plea of autrefois attaint, or a former attainder for the same crime, for this also is a good plea in bar, depending upon the same principle, and governed in general by the same rules as the plea of autrefois convict.

Lastly, a pardon may be pleaded in bar as at once destroying the end and purpose of the indictment by

remitting that punishment which the prosecution is calculated to inflict. (4 Steph. Comm. pp. 405 et seq.)

Q.-What is meant by pleading the general issue? A. It is the plea of not guilty. This is the proper form wherever the prisoner means either to deny or to justify the charge in the indictment; and it is to be observed that in such case there can be no special plea, either in treason or felony. Thus, on an indictment for murder, a man cannot plead that it was in his own defence against a robber; but he must plead the general issue not guilty, and give this special matter in evidence.

The Jury.

Q. What are the qualifications of petty jurors? A.-Every man between the ages of twenty-one and sixty, residing in any county in England, who has in his own name or in trust for him within the same county 107. by the year above reprises in lands or tenements, or in rents therefrom, or in such lands or rents taken together in fee simple, fee tail, or for the life of himself or some other person, or lands to the value of 207. a year held by lease for twenty-one years or longer, or for a term of years determinable on any life or lives, or who, being a householder, is rated or assessed to the poor-rate, or to the inhabited house-duty in Middlesex, to a value of not less than 30%, or in any other county not less than 207., or who occupies a house containing not less than fifteen windows, is qualified to serve on petty juries at the courts at Westminster, in the counties palatine and at

the assizes, and also at both the grand and petty juries at the county sessions. (6 Geo. IV. c. 50; 33 & 34 Vict. c. 77.)

Q.-Who are exempt from serving on juries?

A.-Peers, members of parliament, clergymen, Roman Catholic priests, ministers of any congregation of Protestant Dissenters or Jews, whose place of meeting is duly registered, provided they follow no secular occupation, except that of schoolmaster; those actually practising in the law, as barristers, solicitors, managing clerks, &c., officers of the law courts and acting clerks of the peace, or their deputies; coroners, gaolers and their subordinates, and keepers in public lunatic asylums; physicians, surgeons, apothecaries, pharmaceutical chemists actually practising; officers of the navy, army or militia or yeomanry, if on full pay; pilots, certain persons engaged in the civil service, officers of the police magistrates to a certain extent, burgesses as regards the sessions of the county in which their borough is situate. (33 & 34 Vict. c. 77.)

Q. What is meant by the prisoner's right of challenge to the jury?

A. The prisoner or prisoners, for usually a batch of them are brought up at the same time to appear before the jury, are apprised of their right to object to or challenge any of the jurors by the clerk of arraigns or other officer of the court. They are of two kinds— (1) for causes; (2) peremptory. The former are either:

(1.) To the array, when exception is taken to the whole panel.

(2.) To the polls, when particular individuals are objected to. (Har. Crim. Law, p. 388.)