THE PLACE OF TRIAL OF CRIMINAL CASES: CONSTITUTIONAL VICINAGE AND VENUE

In 1909 one Henry G. Connor, presumably Mr. Justice Connor of the Supreme Court of North Carolina, published in the Pennsylvania Law Review an article entitled The Constitutional Right to a Trial by a Jury of the Vicinage. The question discussed was: May a state constitutionally provide by statute that a crime be tried in a county other than that in which it was committed? Or, putting the question in terms of vicinage as distinguished from venue, may a state constitutionally provide by statute that a crime be tried by jurors summoned from a county other than the county of the crime? Concentrating his attention on the constitutions which guarantee trial by jury without making any express reference to vicinage or venue, Mr. Justice Connor remarked that the question of legislative power is an open one in our jurisprudence. He concluded that the trend of judicial thought is toward a denial of the power. Since Mr. Justice Connor wrote in 1909 a number of cases have been decided which clearly indicate that the present trend of judicial thought is the other way. These decisions call for a re-examination of the entire problem