Commonwealth v. Welosky - 276 Mass. 398, 177 N.E. 656 (1931)

Rule:

Women are not eligible to jury service and the preparation of the jury lists from which a jury is drawn from men alone is right.

Facts:

Defendant was charged with keeping and exposing intoxicating liquor with intent unlawfully to sell the same. She challenged the jury array on the ground that no women were on the lists from which the jurors were drawn; however, her challenge was denied and she was convicted.

Issue:

Did the exclusion of women in the jury list infringe the constitutional rights of the defendant under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States?

Answer:

No.

Conclusion:

The court concluded that defendant had a trial by a jury selected according to the laws of Massachusetts and overruled the exceptions, noting that women were not qualified to be jurors. Although the 19th Amendment gave women the right to vote, Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 234, § 1, which provided that a person qualified to vote was liable to serve as a juror, was enacted prior to that amendment and at a time when the term "person" did not include women. Further, although the 19th Amendment was to be given full effect as to voting rights, it could not be extended to the right to serve as a juror by implication. Instead, the course of legislation intended to make a change in the legal rights of women precluded a change in those rights that was not clearly expressed. The court also found that defendant's equal protection rights were not violated by reason of the exclusion of women from the jury list.