The Sun.
London, England, 1863-02-24 00:00:00

REFORMS IN THE JURY BOX

There is a reform required in respect to the constitution
of juries themelves. The work of a juror ought properly
to fall on every responsible member of the community. In
the first days, except in the case of peers, it was so; but
gradually other exemptions crept in, and now we have so
many persons exempted, that a jury of a responsible kind
is not to be collected in any reasonable time. This plan of
exempting and exempting on one pretext or another, goes
on so fast that we do not see where it is to atop; last year
the chemists and druggists claimed exemption and got it,
and congratulated themselves upon the fact, as if by giving
up an important national right they were raising themselves
in the social scale. Who next will follow ? Perhaps the
undertakers, who certainly have equal right to the honour-
able exemption, if it is honourable, with the druggists : and
then some other class, and so on until at last, by the law of
exclusion, there will be none left, to well and truly try,
except the persons who are present to be tried. There must
be an end to this exemption nuisance : there ought to be no
exemption By the admission of this process, we have si-
re .dy weeded out of the jury box the most intelligent mem-
bers of the whole social bOdy : it must stop therefore, or trial
by jury must fall.

The last point to which wo advert on the present
occasion, has reference to the method by which the
the votes of jurors should be taken. It is becoming a
common praotice now for a jury to be led to do the most
insane acts, on the mere dictum of some one man, who,
despite the evidence, will hold out to the last, and destroy
that unanimity of expression which is essential to a clear
•erdict, and on which all the rest of his fellows are agreed.
We had a notable instance of this obstinacy in the recent
trial of Russell v. Adams to which we drew attention last
week. In this case the calm and intelligent decision of
eleven amen was overruled, we believe, by the dogged objec-
tions of one individual, who, while he could not change the
evidence, would insist on wording such a verdict for the de.
fendant, as should leave a doubt behind it; the most un-
manly, the most unsafe of all kinds of verdicts.
It is impossible that this condition of things can last.
But what is to be the remedy ? We shall be told that there
is some good mixed with the evil; that now and then the
whole of a jury may, with one exception, be wrong, and
that the exceptional man may give to justice her due.
We a !mit the force of the argument freely ; but it does not
meet the difficulty. There ought to be a concord of twelve
men in every verdict, but that twelve should not be twelve
out of twelve, but twelve out of fifteen or eighteen. A change
in the law for increasing the numbers of jurors, as sug-
gested, and for determining that, as at present,twelve must
agree, would, in our opinion, meet every objection : it
would do away with the constant threat:s of our judges of
locking up the disputants until they became one, it would
make decisions much more easy, and justice more perfect.
It would prevent any honest juryman who could not agree
from sacrificing his conscience to his convenience,and with-
out impairing, by one fraction, the right of trial by jury, it
would render that right, instituted in a rude and barbarous
time, consonant with modern civilisation—Social Science
.Review.

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.. .

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