The daily exchange. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1858-1861, 1858-04-09
BALTIMORE.
FRIDAY, APRIL 9, 1858.

the singular deluslon, that when they nave elected
what is commonly called the Judiciary" they
have fully accomplished the great work of choosing
their own judges. They seem to live in bissful
ignorance of the fact that while it takes only two
to make bargain, it requires precisely thirteen to
determine the rights which grow out of it-that
Juries in fine as well as Judges have something
to do with the composition of what are known as
Courts of Justice. While therefore, their repub-
lican sensbilites stand aghast at the idea of allow
ing any body but the people, in mass to select the
one judge who sits on the bench they are quite
satisfied that the twelve judges, who sit on the
platform below him, shall be appointed as luck
may have it. The Governor of the State, who
ought to be, and usually is an intelligent, upright
and responsible person, is neither wise nor good
enough to choose the one man "learned in the
law" The Senate, nay the whole Legislature,
though it makes the laws which to be ad-
ministered is altogether unworthy to designate the
person who shall expound them. But the twelve
judges, who are not 'learned," and yet have to
comprehend and apply the law, Notwithstanding
they, upon whose arbtrament, after ALL nine cases
out of ten depend, without appeal, may be safely
left, it is thought, to be chosen by the Sheriff or
the Sherff's deputies, at WILL out of the entire list
of Free white male citizens in the Baltimore Drec-
tory. They and the chance talesmen who may be
captured on Baltimore street by Sheriff runner,
as they go down town to pay note, or to look
after the ways and means of doing so, are the
folks who hold in the main, the scales of public
justice. They are in criminal cases, "judges of
the law and the fact" and in civil causes "judges
IF tha fact yptt LOFT lda IF
science and interpretation comes to pretty much
the same thing. And yet, with these precise facts
every day before Them large numbers of sensible
people are in a state of constant wonderment at
what is called the uncertainty of the law" to
say nothing of the strange perversons which
sometimes render it so different thing from
justice.
Now let us not be understood as suggesting to
the trainers of the next Constitution, that jurors
should be elected by the people, If there be any
gods or goddesses who preside over lawsuits, we
trust they may keep us from that. 1t would be
better, by Odds to have cases triedat the primary
meetings. With the Judges, the Clerks, the Regis
ters the Sheris the Justices of the Peace and the
Constables, we think that the public mind has a
Judiciary ticket quite long enough to exercise
it, even if it were not compelled to vex itself
otherwise, with the choice of wreckmasers road
supervisors and the rest of the ''sundry officers
who now appeal to it, under the Constitution.
What we mean to say, is, that much as reform is
needed in the practical working of almost every
department of our judicial system, there is none
which needs it more than the branch to which we
have alluded. We intend no reference to the in
cumbents, who have the matter, at present, in
charge. Our comment is on the system itself. No
man who goes much into our courts can fail to
know, that under the most favorable circumstan-
ces, our jury department is more or less, a nui-
sance. We shall have occasion to recur to the
subject, and single illustration will suffice us
now
We refer to the existence of a class of individuals,
whom plain-spoken Judge, in a sister city, has
recently denominated professional jurors, s-men
whose business it is to sit on juries, grand and
petit-whoSe per diem is means of livelihood to
them, and whose names, by some strange hocus
pocus in all the mutations of parties and sherfs,
appear on the jury-lsts of some court or other at
almost every term of every successive year. They
may be political or personal friends of the summon
ing officer, or boon companions of his deputies.
They are about his Office when the jury-sts are
under consideration. They are conveniently in
tile neighborhood when talesmen are wanted
They ready to act as substitutes for business
men, who cannot leave their private affairs to dis
charge one of the most important duties of the citizen
They are often needy-perhaps the killed, wounded
and missing of old party campaigns-and to help
them, at the expense of the public and of suitors is
regarded cheap and commendable charity.
Their votes may be useful again, they have been
before, and votes not, as we all know to be
despsed by any elected officer, judicial or otherwise
But let them be what they may, and let the matter
be managed it may, it certainly is managed
and the same familiar faces appear and the same
familiar hands are Eat the book" from season to
season. till one might think that the life-tenure,
which has departed from the judges, has gone to
the jurors, who die not neither will they resign!
No doubt a good many of the persons thus en-
gagged in the jury-busness are worthy and sensible
people. So much the worse for them-they have
no excuse for following bad trade. But it is
with their calling and not with them that our pres
ent concern is. Trial by jury has, for its basis and
its chief recommendation, the constant admixture
of fresh popular elements in the administration of
justice. Its theory is, that plain and impartial
men, taken indifferently and occasionally from un
professional occupations, and untrammeled by
forensic usages and the technical ideas of those
who live and move in courts, constitute the best
tribunal, under judicial guidance for the investiga-
ton of truth in legal controversies. The theory
may be good bad one, butt is still the theory
and its very essence is involved in the exclusion
from the jury-box of all who have become hack
neyed in the ways of the forum. If it be true as
has been said. that the practice of the law when
not allevated by more liberal collateral pursuits
is at best an occupation which contracts the mind
what must be the effect of hanging about the
courts upon men, who, having neither professional
education nor knowledge nor responsibility are
connected solely with the forms and machinery of
litigation? They acquire smattering of law
which is hundred fold worse than ignorance, and
perverse selfconfdence which is as bad as cor
rupton. They have their predictions and preju-
dices, and learn how to crafty both They become
adopts in the art and mystery of brow-beating a
weak panel and bamboozling an inexperienced one.
They become familiar with all the tricks of the
jury-room, from logrolling for the plaintiff down
to Seating their boots for the defendant In
fine, they get to be sort of outside pettifoggers,
and the only cure for that class of gentry, is to
throw them over the bar, when they are inside of
it-so the remedy for the case of those who are on
the outer sde already is to keep them from getting
in.
A question has been raised in the United States
Senate, the discussion of which, it is to be hoped,