March

— The first section of an act concerning jurors passed May 3, 1852, provides that “A person shall not be competent to act as a juror, unless ha be first a citizen of the United States; second, an elector of the county in which he is returned, etc.”

On the trial of this cause in the court below one of the jurymen stated in his examination that he was not an elector of the county. The prisoner, however, accepted him as a juror, waiving this objeétion. The incompetency of this juror is now assigned as a ground of error, and is, in our opinion, the only debatable question raised by the record. It has been always held in civil cases that a party may waive all errors, and that his consent will be binding upon him, except when the jurisdiction of the court or tribunal is drawn in question (for in such cases it is uniformly held that consent cannot confer jurisdiction); but the law lays down a different rule in criminal prosecutions, and its humane intendments are in favor of the accused.

In criminal cases, particularly those - amounting to felony, the better opinion is that nothing is to be presumed against the criminal, and that he is not to be considered as having waived any right…