NORTH CAROLINA GENERAL ASSEMBLY
1965 SESSION

CHAPTER 686
HOUSE BILL 717

AN ACT TO PROVIDE FOR THE DRAWING OF JURORS IN BERTIE COUNTY.

The General Assembly of North Carolina do enact:

Section 1. Chapter 690 of the 1951 Session Laws of North Carolina is repealed.
Sec. 2. At least twenty days before each regular or special term of the Superior Court of Bertie County, the Board of Commissioners of Bertie County shall cause to be drawn from the jury box out of the partition marked No. 1, by a child not more than ten years of age, the number of scrolls here designated for the respective weeks and terms of court, to wit: for the first week of the first criminal or mixed term, regular or special, to be convened on or after the 1st day of January of each year and for the first week of the first criminal or mixed term, regular or special, to be convened on or after the 1st day of July of each year, whether such terms be held pursuant to the calendar of courts promulgated by the Supreme Court or by order of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court or by order of the Director of the Administrative Office of the Courts or otherwise as provided by law, forty scrolls; and for all other weeks of all other terms thirty‑six scrolls. The persons whose names are inscribed on said scrolls shall serve as jurors at the term of the Superior Court to be held for the county ensuing such drawing, and for the week for which they are drawn, unless the presiding judge shall sooner discharge all jurors from further service. The scrolls so drawn to make the jury shall be put into the partition marked No. 2. The trial jury which has served during each week shall be discharged by the presiding judge at the close of said week, unless the said jury shall be then actually engaged in the trial of a case, and then they shall not be discharged until the trial is determined.
Sec. 3. The judge presiding over the Superior Court of Bertie County for the first week of the first criminal or mixed term, regular or special, to be convened on or after the 1st day of January of each year and for the first week of the first criminal or mixed term, regular or special, to be convened on or after the 1st day of July of each year, convened as provided in Section 2 of this Act, shall direct the names of all persons returned as jurors for said first week to be written on scrolls of paper and placed in a box or hat and drawn out in open court by a child not more than ten years of age; whereof the first nine persons whose names are thus drawn shall serve upon the grand jury of Bertie County for a term of one year; and the residue shall serve as petit jurors for the court during the week for which they were drawn. The presiding judge at the term at which the aforesaid nine persons shall be drawn shall charge the grand jury as provided by law. In the event of a vacancy or vacancies occurring in the grand jury of Bertie County, the presiding judge at any term of Superior Court, regular or special, at which such vacancy or vacancies may occur, may, in his discretion, order a new juror or jurors to be drawn in open court in the manner hereinbefore provided in this Section from scrolls on which shall have been written the names of all persons returned as jurors for service during the first week of that term of court; whereupon such new juror or jurors shall take the oaths prescribed by law and shall serve out the remainder of the term of one year of the grand juror or jurors whose place or places such new juror or jurors shall have been drawn to fill.
Sec. 4. It is declared to be the intention of this Act that the grand jury of Bertie County shall be composed of nine members who shall be chosen at the first criminal or mixed term, regular or special, to be convened on or after the 1st day of January of each year and nine members who shall be chosen at the first criminal or mixed term, regular or special, to be convened on or after the 1st day of July of each year; that all of such grand jurors shall serve for a term of one year, so as to provide a grand jury of staggered terms, and so as to provide at all times that the grand jury of the county shall be composed in part of members who shall have been experienced during the preceding six months; and that the presiding judge may, in his discretion, fill any vacancy or vacancies which may occur in the grand jury as hereinbefore provided.
Sec. 5. The nine members of the grand jury for Bertie County who were drawn for grand jury service beginning with the February term, 1965, and the replacements for any of said nine shall serve out the remainder of their term of one year.
Sec. 6. If any provision of this Act shall be declared unconstitutional or invalid, such invalidity shall not affect other provisions or application of the Act which can be given effect without the invalid provision, and to this end the provisions of this Act are declared to be severable.
Sec. 7. All laws and clauses of laws in conflict with this Act are hereby repealed.
Sec. 8. This Act shall become effective on the 1st day of June, 1965.
In the General Assembly read three times and ratified, this the 25th day of May, 1965.