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90 Ga. 459

Taffe v. State

Supreme Court of Georgia

Decided October 8, 1892

Supreme Court of Georgia · decided 1892-10-08

Criminal law. Jury trial. Waiver. Practice. Argument. Evidence. Before Judge Turnbull. City court of Eloyd county. 1. The defendant was indicted for disturbing a congregation of persons lawfully assembled for divine service in a grove at West Borne. He was tried in the city court of Eloyd county. Upon the calling of the case the defendant and the State both announced ready.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1892-10-08

How this case has been cited

Cited by 5 later decisions — most recently August 1971

5 state decisions

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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.

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Simmons, Justice.

¶1The act creating the city court of Floyd county declares that “ the trial of all issues of fact in said court shall be by the court without a jury, except where either party in a civil case or the defendant in a criminal case shall in writing demand a trial by jury ” ; and that “ the failure to file such demand at or before the beginning of the trial shall be a waiver of said right.” Acte 1882-3, p. 538. The record shows that the accused was tried by the court with a jury although none was demanded, and of this he complains. The point was raised by his motion in arrest of judgment, it being insisted that the court was without jurisdiction to try him with a jury unless a jury was demanded. It does not appear that before judgment he made any objection to this mode of trial. On the contrary, he aided in the selection of the jury and submitted his case to it. If, therefore, he had any right under this statute to object to being tried by the court with a jury, he waived it. The trial by jury impaired no right which he was precluded from waiving ; in fact, the complaint is, in effect, that he was accorded his constitutional right to a jury without having demanded it. He was tried by a court that had jurisdiction of himself and of his ease, and the fact that he was tried by the court with a jury, but without a written demand, could not be fatal to'the jurisdiction.

¶2The remaining questions in the case are ruled by the head-notes^ Judgment affirmed.

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