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43 Wis. 403

State v. Lockwood

Wisconsin Supreme Court

Decided August 15, 1877

Wisconsin Supreme Court · decided 1877-08-15

EEPOETED from the Municipal Court of Bane County. The report of this cause, made by the judge of said court under the statute, states, in substance, that questions of law arose in respect to the proceedings therein, so important and so doubtful as in bis opinion to require the decision of this court upon them; and that, “ the defendant desiring that such questions of law be referred ” to this court, he, the said judge, therefore submits the same, and certifies the cause, so…

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“[t]he right of trial by jury ... for crime, is secured by the constitution, upon a principle of public policy, and cannot be waived.”

quoted by 2 later decisions, including State v. Slowe, 175 Wis. 2d 116 - State v. Ledger

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1877-08-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 26 later decisions — most recently June 2000 · most notably State v. Huebner (2000), Oborn v. State (1910)

1 federal appellate · 24 state decisions

5018771880189019001910192019301940195019601970198019902000decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Ryan, C. J.

¶1No counsel appeared on the argument, for the accused. The case was presented for the state only.

¶2The attorney general was mistaken in assuming that the de*405fendant’s consent to the report of the learned judge of the municipal court did not appear. But his objection that the report does not show a legal trial of the accused, to warrant the report and to give jurisdiction to this court to consider it (State v. Parish, 42 Wis., 625), appears to be well taken.

¶3A plea of not guilty to an information or indictment for crime, whether felony or misdemeanor, puts the accused upon the country, and can be tried by a jury only. The rule is universal as to felonies; not quite so as to misdemeanors. But the current of authority appears to apply it to both classes of crime; and this court holds that to be safer and better alike in principle and practice. The right of trial by jury, upon information or indictment for crime, is secured by the constitution, upon a principle of public policy, and cannot be waived. Cooley’s Const. Lim., 319, 410, n.; Proffatt’s Jury Tr., sec. 113; Neales v. State, 10 Mo., 498; State v. Mansfield, 41 id., 470; Commonwealth v. Shaw, 1 Pittsburgh, 492. In the latter case will be found a collection of authorities bearing .on the question.

¶4The trial of the information by his honor’, the judge of the municipal court, was therefore a mistrial, which could not support a judgment or authorize the report of the questions of law to this court for determination. There has been no conviction within the meaning of the statute.

¶5It is not improper, however, to say that if the validity of ch. 140 of 1872 were properly before it, this court would be very much disposed to follow the ruling of the surpreme court of Michigan in Cranson v. Smith, 5 Cent. L. J., 386, and hold the statute to be an invasion of federal authority, and therefore void. See also Woolen v. Banker, 17 Alb. L. J., 72.

¶6But as it is, the court is obliged to decline giving an authoritative answer to the questions reported.

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