Gold Hill daily news. [volume] (Gold Hill, N.T. [Nev.]) 1863-1882, 1864-01-22
IIRORS.

y OEGNbNeSs
The Jury system is one that has been
for wears the theme of much discussion
and MANY and various have been the
schemes projected for making that "grcat
b,llwark of liberty" perfect institution.
The more man sees of its workings, the
more he loses faith in the infallibility of
tine vaunted stwelve good men and true
For one to squarely denounce the whole
system would b. next to high treason or
burning church, in the eyes of the great
mass Of the community, and we have no
expectation Of seeing any man of political
proclivities making martyr of himself,
by proposing to abolish the trial by jury.
To make the institution what it was in
tended to be, is us much Us ANY man
ought to try, and more, we fear, than any
will be able to accomplish while mankind
labor under their present load of imper-
factionS. Around the system, as it at
present exists, are thrown by statutes,
prcccdents and rulings of courts, mass
of difficulties and trammels, that render it
too often 4 farce and mockery of sense
and justice. Chief among these has been
the custom of rejecting any and all per-
sons from acting as jurors i'll case, the
circumstances of which have been alluded
to by the newspapers, and who have
CHANGED to read what purported to be Il
statement of the facts. To have formed or
expressed an unqualified opinion relative
to the merits of case is legal disQuali-
6cation. This provision has been con-
strued by many, if not great majority Of
Judges, to necessarily include all who
nave read newspaper account Of the
transaction m litigation, and who placed
any confidence in the correctness Of
the account therein given. The
American people are newspaper
reading people, and that class Of citizens
who possess enough Of intelligence to
qualify them to sit in Judgment ON the
lives and rights of their fellow men, are
invariably readers of the public journals.
1t IS proposition too plain for argument
that the man who is too ignorant to read,
or too careless Of what daily passes around
him, to scan the ordinary channels Of
public information, IS too ignorant to sit
as an arbiter of the rights of man. The
impression formed upon the mind of a
man of ordinary intelligence by the gene
raj account of transaction, such an is
ordinarily given by newspapers, is not of
such fixed and iueradicahle formation as
TO disqualify him from coming thereafter
to q correct conclusion upon the evidence
adducel, before a court, from sworn wit
nesscs on the stand. The solemnity Of
the position in which n juror is placed
is such as to discard from his mind any
careless or hasty view taken of matter
upon a casual perusal of newspapers. We
perceive that certain Judges in California
have broken into this old senSeleSS rule
and declared that the opinion formed upon
newspaper statements is not such an one
as the law contemplates under the desig-
nation of an unqualified opinion. The
subject has also taken more direct shape
in the Legislature of that State, and We
learn that the Statute is proposed to be
amended so as to declare the principle
distinctly, that such opinions shall not
disqualfy from fitness as juror. 1t is
step in the right direction, and will, we
hope. be made the general rule. If the
people must have jurors to decide their
controversies, let us, at least, have men of
ordinary sense and intelligence, and not
have ignorance and stupidity the sine qua
non.