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ticket cases, that kind of thing. It all de-
volves upon the legislature in this particular
area, subject, of course, to the overriding
decisions that the courts might make as to
what is or what is not a petty offense
based upon the law of England. So I think,
in other words, it would be a restrictive
amendment and it would cover things .that I
cannot foresee and I suggest that probably
you cannot either.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Case only
has one more minute. There are two others
desiring to ask questions. The Chair will
permit one question each.
Delegate Chabot.
DELEGATE CHABOT: Delegate Case,
would an offense for which one could be
imprisoned be a petty offense under this?
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Case.
DELEGATE CASE: The case that I
quoted to you, the Glenn case, did involve a
prison. Generally speaking, the line for the
definition of a petty offense has been drawn
at a maximum of six months, although
there is no definitive definition of the term.
The case in the Supreme Court that I
quoted to you was for .that period of time.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Macdonald.
DELEGATE MACDONALD: Delegate
Case, is this a term of art? Do we have a
definite line between offenses which are
petty offenses and those which are not?
I1HE CHAIRMAN: Delegate 'Case.
DELEGATE CASE: It is a word of art
and the line is drawn by the court based
upon the common law of England.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Bamberger.
DELEGATE BAMBERGER: Delegate
Case, could the legislature in the future
establish some new crime and say there
shall not be a right to trial by jury?
THE CHAIRMAN Delegate Case.
DELEGATE CASE: Not if it were any-
thing other than, under this amendment, a
petty offense.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Kiefer.
DELEGATE KIEFER: Mr. Chairman,
ladies and gentlemen of the Committee,
Delegate Case presented me with this ques-
tion and problem before today's meeting.
Frankly, perhaps I am a little bit con-
fused and I remind myself of a certain
French girl that applied for a job as an
airline hostess. Because some of you may
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be confused permit me a moment to tell
you about her. She applied for the job and
passed all of the tests. When she got com-
pletely finished, she had successfuly passed
them all. Then the personnel director said
there is just one more problem we are going
to put to you and you have got to give us
the answer. He said, you are on an airliner
with a hundred men and you are going over-
seas. Suddenly the motors conk out and
you find yourself making a forced landing
in the ocean. The first thing you know you
end up on a desert island with 100 men.
Now, what would you do? When she looked
a little bit confused the personnel director
said, "don't you understand the question?
"Oui," she replied, I understand the ques-
tion, but what is ze problem?
Frankly, ladies and gentlemen, I do not
think there is a problem here. We adopted
the concept contained in the language of
the three sections of .the Maryland Declara-
tion of Rights, including Article 5, which
is what Mr. Case refers to. We specifically
considered the language which provides that
the inhabitants of Maryland are entitled to
the common law of England and trial by
jury in the common law courts in accord-
ance with that law. We also considered
Article 21 which says that in all criminal
prosecutions every man has the right to be
informed, and to have a speedy trial by an
impartial jury without whose unanimous
consent he should not be found guilty. Arti-
cle 23 refers to due process of law. Mr.
Case quoted a particular case — and I do
not mean to doubt his accuracy in reporting
it — but in that case the judge considered
all three of these sections of the Declara-
tion of Rights and did make the point that
there are some cases, many cases, that are
not tried by a jury. However, the United
States Constitution has the same provisions.
I do not see where there is any particular
problem. In Maryland we have a statute
which provides for magistrate trials, in
which before a person can be tried, and I
will read it to you: "provided, however, the
accused, when brought before any such trial
magistrate, or being informed by him of
his right to trial by jury, freely elects to be
tried before such trial magistrate, and pro-
vided, further, that a jury trial be not
prayed in such case on .the part of the State
by the State's Attorney."
Today any person brought before a trial
magistrate is entitled to a trial by jury if
he so wants.
I think putting in this language will not
help the situation. I certainly do not think
we want to change the current status of the
law. I believe that what we have said un-
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