State v. . Barker
Supreme Court of North Carolina
This was an Indictment for Perjury, tried before Meares, J., at September Term, 1890, of the Criminal Court of New Hanover County. The defendant pleaded in abatement to the indictment, and it was admitted by the State, that when the bill was found there were only eleven members of the grand jury present, the twelfth grand juror having been excused by the foreman on account of his being a brother-in-law of the prosecutrix.
Read the full summary
This was an Indictment for Perjury, tried before Meares, J., at September Term, 1890, of the Criminal Court of New Hanover County. The defendant pleaded in abatement to the indictment, and it was admitted by the State, that when the bill was found there were only eleven members of the grand jury present, the twelfth grand juror having been excused by the foreman on account of his being a brother-in-law of the prosecutrix. Under the act of Assembly establishing the said Court, the number of the grand jury is fixed at twelve, and it is provided that the concurrence of nine of that body shall be…
1Opinion of the Court
Shepherd, J
—after stuting the facts: “No freeman shall be taken or imprisoned or disseized or outlawed or banished or in any ways destroyed, nor will we pass upon him or commit him to-prison unless by the legal judgment of his peers or unless by the law of the land” Such is the language of King John in Magna Charter, which instrument was called by Sir Edward Coke, “the charter of the liberties of the Kingdom upon great reason because, liberos facit, it makes the people free.”
“To have produced it (says Sir James Macintosh), to have preserved it, to have matured it, constituted the immortal…
2Cases cited1 opinion
- Hurtado v. CaliforniaSupreme Court of the United States · 1884
3Cited by31 opinions
- State v. ThomasSupreme Court of North Carolina · 1952
- Fitts v. Superior CourtCalifornia Supreme Court · 1936
- Ex Parte CainSupreme Court of Oklahoma · 1908
- English v. StateSupreme Court of Florida · 1893
- Ex Parte McNaughtSupreme Court of Oklahoma · 1909
26 more not listed; retrieve them via the Exa API.