Horace Gray

“ Congress has not itself provided any peculiar mode of trial in proceedings for the condemnation of lands for public uses. The direction in the act of 1888 (chapter 728, § 2) that such proceedings shall conform, 'as near as may be,' to those 'in the courts of record of the state,' is not to be construed as creating an exception to the general rule of trial by an ordinary jury in a court of record, and as requiring, by way either of preliminary, or of substitute, a trial by a different jury, not in a court of record, nor in the presence of any judge. ”

“ The general rule, as expressed in the Revised Statutes of the United States, is that the trial of issues of fact in actions at law, both in the district court and in the circuit court, 'shall be by jury,' by which is evidently meant a trial by an ordinary jury at the bar of the court. ”

“ Elliott, 10 Pet. 25; Kohl v. U.S., 91 U.S. 367; U.S. v. Jones, 109 U.S. 513, 3 Sup. Ct. 346; Railroad Co. v. Lowe, 114 U.S. 525, 531, 532, 5 Sup. Ct. 995; Cherokee Nation v. Southern Kan. Ry. Co., 135 U.S. 641, 656, 10 Sup. Ct. 965; Monongahela Nav. Co. v. U.S., 148 U.S. 312, 13 Sup. Ct. 622; Luxton v. Bridge Co., 147 U.S. 337, 13 Sup. Ct. 356, and Id., 153 U.S. 525, 14 Sup. Ct. 891; Burt v. Insurance Co., 106 Mass. 356; In re U.S., Petitioner, 96 N. Y. 227.
Nor is it necessary that congress should itself select the particular land to be taken. ”