A _subpoena_ is an order issued in a court and given to a sheriff or other executive officer, to be served upon or read to a witness, compelling him to appear before the court at the time stated. He must lay aside all pretenses and excuses, and appear before the court or the magistrate at the time and place named in the subpoena, under a penalty therein cited for failure to appear. His failure to obey the order of the court, or subpoena, is known as _contempt_. Contempt is punishable in Federal courts, and in most States by the order of the judge, and is not subject to jury trial. (Oklahoma is an exception.)
70 "At common law a prisoner was not allowed counsel. In England this right was not granted in all cases before 1836."--_Cyclopedia of American Government_, Vol. I, p. 487.
The United States was the earliest of nations to not only permit every person accused of crime and tried before a court to have counsel, but to furnish counsel for every person who was not himself able to get counsel or able to pay for counsel.
71 Constitution of the United States, Amendment VII.
"Common Law is that system of law or form of the science of jurisprudence which has prevailed in England and in the United States, in contradistinction from other great systems, such as Roman or civil law."--Bouvier's _Law Dictionary_, Vol. I, p. 370.
"Common law is used to distinguish the body of rules and of remedies administered by courts of law, technically so called, in contradistinction to those of equity administered by courts of chancery, and to the canon law, administered by ecclesiastical courts."--Bouvier's _Law Dictionary_, Vol. I, p. 370.
72 Constitution of the United States, Amendment VII.
"A jury is a body of men sworn to declare the facts of a case as they are proven from the evidence placed before them."--Bouvier's _Law Dictionary_.
The definition of a jury explains why the facts of a case are not open for re-examination after being declared by a jury. It is because a jury meets in a court in the place where the offense has been committed, and is therefore better able to know the whole truth, and to determine what the facts really are than would be possible for any other body of men who did not have such means of knowing. A higher court in reviewing a case on an appeal cannot usually go behind the facts as declared by a jury.