The Morristown gazette. [volume] (Morristown, Tenn.) 1867-1920, 1880-03-24
Our jury System.

l3E IA New York star.l
There is one man in the world TO-DAY
and perhaps only the one--who can say
with any degree of gertrude whether
the eleven Jurors in the Hayden case
who declared for acquittal were iusti-
fed by the fact-we say nothing of the
l@eyilence-or If the one recusant mem
Der Of the panel who refused to lean
to mercy's side, and held out to
the last for conviction had taken and
chung to the true Interpretation of the
question he was sworn to try. On this
matter the public viii remain perhaps
forever uncertain and uniformed: and
indeed we feel that the public regard
the close of the abortive trial as a great
relief, and will he happy to hear no
more of 90 the great oyer Of poisoning ("
in Connecticut, either in private dis
cussion or in judicial developments.
y What has the cOmmunity-public
justice or private interests-gained by
the prolonged hearingP Justice has
not been satisfied in its demands for
retribution. Innocence is not sustained
in the interests of the individual. Time
has been wasted, money expended, and
excitement of unhealthy moral nature
kept up for months, and the only re-
suits we zee in this turning of court of
law into a scientific lecture room, Civ
ing the public easy lessons in medical
Jurisprudence, creating royal road
to acquisition of the chemical constitu-
ents of mineral poisons. and giving the
criminal classes practical instruction of
the means and manner of covering up
tell-tale tracks should they be disposed
to indulge at any time in arsenieal ex-
periments on the human system. These
the results 80 far, save the disappoint-
ment of the prosecution at miscarriage
of justice, and the long continued sus-
pense of the accused man and his fam
lily, which can hardly be said to be
atOned for by an ending which brings
with it a suspicion and stain.
It is plain, as we said few days ago,
that the jury system demands some
change. Here is a machine of which
the purpose is to discover facts and
elicit truth. Amid confusion, false
hood and mystery it is to detect the
secret crime and expose the criminal.
How often does it fail in this object2 If
not as often as it succeeds, at least so
frequently that it cannot be relied on.
Uncertainty is almost its characteristic.
What then does it avail that the main
spring of its movement was forged by
Magma Oharta itself and that the du-a-
bility of its materials is tested by the
ceaseless action of several hundred years
in England; and here, since subsection
to law became the recognized bulwark
of American institutionsP We answer
all this by pointing to results, and by
further asking is it not clear that trial
by jury is desperately out of order or
altogether worthless? Ga
Get rid of the necessity of unanimous
verdicts. The required unanimity in
ninety-nine cases out of hundred is
nothing more or less than a required
falsehood and perjury. Had the one
Juror in Hayden's case yielded to sell
fishness or surrendered on compulsiOn,
the accused would be wholly free at this
of present stains as Of
worry but then the juror would have
sacrificed his conscientious judgment
and violated the sanctity of his oath.
BY accepting-as in the Scotch law
the verdict of the majority, the result
would be all the same to the prisoner,
and no man on the jury need look into
his own heart, there to find recorded the
of perjury. The law in
tends the unanimous verdict to be
accordant with the oath, but what does
Justice get in most cases? A verdict
against the evidence and the oath, die
tated by the prejudice and Obstinacy Of
one man, and submitted to with the
false pretenses of Unanimity.