Page:United States Reports, Volume 209.djvu/495

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LANG ?. NEW JERSEY. ? U.S. Opi?on of the Court. Second, the statute is based on "municipal consideration" alone. Lewis v. Missouri, 101 U.S. 22; McQu?//in v. State, 8 S. & M. 587, 597; Kan? v. State, 86 Mississippi, 505. Third, if there be a class favored by the statute, it is not an arbi- trarily made class. Bachtel v. Wi/son, 204 U.S. 41; Lewis v. Missour:i, 101 U.S. 22; Brown v. State, 175 U.S. 175; We. st v. Lou/s/ana, i94 U.S. 263. MR. JUSTICE MCKENNA delivered the opinion of the court. Plaintiff in error was convicted in the Court of Oyer and Terminet of Middlesex County, N.J., of the crime of murder. His conviction was successively affirmed by the Supreme At]. Rep. 210. He attacks the judgment on the ground teat he has been deprived of the equal protection of the laws, in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, in that his motion to quash the indict- ment was denied, a plea in abatement overruled, and that he was required to answer the indictment. The crime for which plaintiff in error was indicted was com- mitted after the grand jury was impanelled, and t?vo of its members were over the age of sixty-five years. The object of his motion and plea wa? to avail himself of the limitation of age of grand jurors prescribed by the statutes of the State and avoid that part of the section which provides that the exception on that ground nmst be taken before the jury is 1 That every person summoned as a grand juror in any court of this State, sad. every petit juror returned for th? trial of any action or suit of a civil or criminal nature, shall be a citizen of this State and resident within the county from which he shall be taken, and above the age of twenty-one and under the age of sixty-five years; and if any person, who is not so qualified, shall be summoned ? a graml jnror, or as a juror on the trial of any such action in any of the courts of this State? or if any person shall be summoned as a petit juror at any stated term of any court of this State, who has serve, 4 - as such at any of the three stated terms next preceding that to which he