The Sun.
London, England, 1865-01-10 00:00:00

The Grand Jury System.

BIRMINGHAM, Monday Evening.
At the quarter sessions here to-day, Mr. M. D. Hill,
Q.C., recorder, the following charge was delivered :
" Gentlemen of the Grand Jury,—At the April sessions
of the year 1855, I laid before your predecessor and the
public, in a charge which has since been printed in a per-
manent form, facts and reasons which appeared to me con-
clusively to prove that to call grand jurymen from their
avocations for the purpose of reviewing the decisions of
magistrates as to the propriety of subjecting the prisoners
in the calendar to trial for the offences charged against
them is, except in certain rare cases, a glaring misuse of
your valuable time—that such a course is not merely nuga-
tory but most injurious, a serious hardship to you and to
prosecutors, and witnesses who often long remain in weari-
some attendance waiting to be called before you, a heavy
burden upon the fund out of which the cost of prosecution
is paid—productive not seldom of immunity to criminals,
because (among other reasons) of the reluctance it gene-
rates in parties injured to appeal to the vindication prof-
fered by the law ; and finally, useless, and worse than use-
less, to the prisoner, who has been irrongfully charged,
even where the finding is in his favour. For, as the grand
jury does not and cannot assemble until just on the eve of
his trial, he is not relieved from the imprisonment which
has followed upon his committal ; while on the other hand,
as neither audience nor reporters are admitted into your
chamber, the grounds on which the bill of indictment
against him is ignored, whereby he is restored to liberty,
are utterly unknown to the world. Such a deliverance,
therefore, will scarcely reinstate him in the good opinion
of his neighbours, who can but surmise as to whether his
escape is due to his :innocence or to some failing link in
the proof, which, while it renders his conviction impos-
sible, leaves him open to reasonable suspicion. Or
whether again this grand inquest may not, from defect in
legal knowledge, for which it would be monstrous to
hold its members obnoxious to censure, have misap-
prehended the bearing of the facts against him upon_the
particular law which he is accused of violating. lam sure
each one of you must feel that for a guiltless man to be ap-
prehended by the police, to have the accusation against him
blazoned in the newspapers, to be sent to prison until the
day of trial, and then to be dismissed without that thorough
investigation of the case in open court which may enable
him to clear up all doubts and difficulties, and to again stand
erect before his neighbours and friends, is the very reverse
of a benefit, and must often excite feelings which may
rankle in his heart through life. Nor was I the first to point
attention to this mischievous absurdity in our procedure.
Complaints from grand juries of the Old Bailey—our chief
seat of criminal jurisprudence—had more than once been
heard and had been diffused by the press through the whole
kingdom ; these complaints have lately been revived, and
reiterated with great emphasis.. More than once, too, were
bills brought into the House of Commons for the redress of
this grievance. But the public mind Was apathetic. Few or
none, either in or out of Parliament, defended the present
system; and few or none denied its ill-consequences. Yet
nothing was accomplished, and the matter fell into abey-
ance. This failure, perhaps, may be in part explained by
difference of opinion as to the remedy. To some the griev-
ance appeared to be merely topical ; and that, while relief
was required for the metropolis, the action of grand juries
in the country was not only harmless, but salutary. Others
would fain have abolished the institution altogether, but
the former proposal was not calculated to attract much
attention out of London, and London itself is hard to
move. The latter proposal shocked the national sentiment
to which the very thought of utterly destroying an in-
stitution so ancient, formerly so deeply revered, and
which at momentous crises of our history had proved a
bulwark of our liberties, was revolting in the highest
degree. Reasoning fares ill when opposed to sentiment.
Nor indeed are the arguments all on one side ; for while
improvements in other parts of our procedure, together with
the general advance of civilisation, have made the attacks
on liberty against which our forefathers had relied for
defence upon grand juries innocuous at the present day,
yet important duties would remain to be performed if their
jurisdiction over bills of indictment were altogether abo-
lished; although, unhappily, their labours in this latter de-
partment have so occupied their time and so absorbed their
attention as to leave no leisure for other and higher ser-
vices. In what these higher services consist I explained at
length in my charge of 1855. On this occasion, therefore, I
will only say that the late presentment as a nuisance, by
the Berkshire grand jury, of the Great Western Railway
station at Reading, is a fair example of such duties. Let me
now, gentlemen, attempt to illustrate more fully than I
have hitherto done the absurdities caused by the interven
tion of the grand jury between the committal of the pri-
soner and his trial. The dealing of the law with an accused
party divides itself into several stages. There is first, his
detection and arrest ; second, his hearing before the magis-
trates, in whose court he has, by virtue of recent improve-
ments, every advantage enjoyed on his trial—save only
that the decision is not made by a jury, but by the magis-
trate himself. Still, that decision, while it may at once
set
him at liberty, can, when adverse to him, only send him for
the ultimate determination of his fate to a higher tribunal,
where 12 of his peers will stand between him and all dan-
ger of oppression. What good purpose, then, can be an-
swered by imposing the tasks upon you to which, at the
close of my address, your are—l could almost say—con-
demned to perform ? You can only hear one aide.aYou are
not apprised by any speech of an advocate of the facts
which are to be brought under your consideration. You
are not aided by a legal assessor, who will apply the
evidence to the law, and offer you his opinion as to
whether such a case is made out in proof as will justify
the petit jury in finding a verdict of guilty, unless wit-
nesses for the prisoner should adduce counter evidence
prevailing over that of the prosecution, or unless the
criminating facts can be explained away. The appeal from
the justice of the peace to the grand jury is in striking con-
trast every other appeal known to our law, In all in-
stances except this the appellate court is chosen as being
better entitled to confidence in its judgments than
th
the
court below ; and the powers conferred upon it for fulfilling
its duties always equal, and sometimes exceed, those of the
Primary tribunal. Yet in the kind of appeal under considera-
tion these advantages are reversed. Justice of the peace,
the their daily experience, acquire facilities in searching out
the truth which grand juries would doubtless possess in an
equal
imidegree if their training to their duties were of corre-
some._ g length
s of them never
and the others
frequently called
the But the grand jury of one session will
°T,l3' after a long • terval • and, in although
probably be called upon to sit again,
grand juries at ass- ' much
similar asserabliZor
composed of
magist mes in the country are very
which render their in
rates, and the same individuals are more
the truth than the investigation
aided by his clerk, 1:h°1
gt far. less efficient in arriving at
towns, repeat their services than in the
yet disabilities still remain
before the justice of the
peace,
quires performance in duplicate 7
semen, if the duty of examinoat7 a man of the law. Gen-
referred
bviehy should not the other
stages to which I have preliminary
was
Gold not &faculties be
to trial re-
and why, on the second occaaion
instance, when
iwthhewnhianch the first w; should
over twice ?
police. cum,
conbeversanred ? with
finorte
the haunts of the criminal clatis, personally Acelliahit with