Does the right of suffrage entitle women to serve as jurors? This
question has been answered in the affirmative in Michigan, where it was
held, in People v. Barltz, 180 N. W. 423, 12 A.L.R. 520, that a
constitutional declaration that every inhabitant of the State, being a
citizen, shall be an elector and entitled to vote, makes women electors
within the meaning of a statute requiring jurors to be drawn from the
electors, and they are therefore entitled to perform jury duty.
This decision seems to stand alone. A contrary conclusion was reached in
Re Grilli, 110 Misc. 45, 179 N. Y. Supp. 795, affirmed on opinion below
in 192 App. Div. 885, 181 N. Y. Supp. 938, which involved the right of
an enfranchised woman to compel the board of assessors and the
commissioner of jurors to complete the county jury lists by including
therein the qualified women voters of the county. The Court said: "The
only claim made by the petitioner in connection with her application is
that jury service is incidental to and a part of suffrage, and since, by
the recent amendment of the State Constitution, women are qualified to
vote, they must be made jurors. The fallacy of this contention is found
in an examination of the history of the jury system since the adoption
of the first Constitution in the State of New York. While citizenship
has always been a qualification of jury service, every voter has not
been included within the jury lists. The various laws with reference to
jurors show that men who were entitled to vote have been excluded from
jury service."
In Illinois, the fact that women are legal voters for the election of
statutory officers, and certain other purposes, is held not to make them
eligible for jury service in criminal cases, in People v. Krause, 196
Ill. App. 140, and People v. Goehringer, 196 Ill. App. 475.
In Virginia, according to 6 Va. L. Reg. N. S. 780, Judge Gardner, in
instructing jury commissioners, distinguished between the right to vote
and the duty to render jury service, by stating that the former is a
constitutional right conferred, while the latter is a legislative duty
imposed. He concluded that women cannot lawfully serve as jurors under
the Virginia statute, which limits that duty to "male citizens over
twenty-one years of age," until the legislature so modifies the statute
as to make it applicable to "all male and female citizens twenty-one
years old."
The Court, in the Wyoming case of McKinney v. State, 3 Wyo. 719, 30 Pac.
293, 16 L.R.A. 710, seems to have been of the opinion that a
constitutional provision that "the rights of citizens of the state of
Wyoming to vote and to hold office shall not be abridged or denied on
account of sex," and that "both male and female citizens of this State
shall equally enjoy all civil, political, and religious rights and
privileges," did not require that women voters be allowed to serve as
jurors.
The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, in Re Opinion of Justices,
130 N. E. 685, answered questions submitted by the House of
Representatives by holding that, under the Constitution of the United
States and the Constitution and laws of Massachusetts, women are not
liable to jury duty. The State statute subjects to jury service persons
"qualified to vote for representatives to the General Court." These
words, while broad enough to include women, are held not to do so, when
interpreted in connection with the history of the times and the entire
system of which the statute forms a part. It was determined, however,
that the General Court had constitutional power to enact legislation
making women liable to jury duty.--_Case and Comment_.