Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1880-12-25

is to weed out the intelligence and capac-
ity from the panel in all murder cases.
The questions put to the jurors are pre-
cisely such as no intelligent man can
answer satisfactorily to counsel for the de-
Tense. He is asked if he has heard of the
case about to be tried, and if he has formed
or expressed opinions on it. If he answers
both these questions in the affirmative
he is rejected. No question, however, is
put to him which has for its object the as
certainment of his capacity to form an intel
ligent opinion upon any conceivable subject.
Counsel do not seek to put shrewd and
clear minded men in the jury-box. The
weaker the jury the more easily they may
be influenced by false rhetoric ana ford
clap-trap. The result of the peculiar in
QUESTION applied to the jurors is that the
men who would be best fitted to determine
the merits of the case are eliminated, and
when the panel is completed it represents,
in nine cases out of ten, degree of intel
hgence very far below the average. This
is the kind of body which is thus laborious
ly got together, by the process of unnatural
rejection, to deal with the most important
and far-reaching interests. Who knows
whether one man out of the twelve in an
average murder case jury is competent to
form judgment upon anything, or under
stand in the least the obligations of his
position, or is capable of discriminating
between valid and invalid representations,
or can distinguish between demonstration
and bold assumption? Certainly the pre-
sumption is against them, for the men who
have not formed or expressed opinions upon
current topics Of special interest and
gravity are veryapt to be brainless creatures
and bad citizens. whose intellectual
habbiness renders them clphers in society,
though the same defect constitutes their
chief claim to the responsible and much
abused Office of juryman. The fact is
that the usual tests of bias applied to
jurors are no tests at ali. The assumption
that if a man has formed or expressed an
opinion about murder, he is therefore in
competent to try the case dispassionately,
is altogether uniustifable. Every man
capable of reasoning Immediately forms
some kind of opinion upon every incident
brought TO his attention. Such opinions,
however, are not binding. They are not
like the laws of the Modes and Persians.
They are simply provisional opinions, liable
to be changed OF reversed upon the pre-
sentation of adequate reasons. The man
who has formed an opinion at least shows
that he has capacity of some kind for
reaching conclusions, but the man whose
mind does not carry him to any judgment
upon current events may very possibly be
little better than fool. Now if the
people of this State do not really ap-
prove of the almost invariable acquittal
of murderers which has thus far happened,
they must make up their minds to some
radical reforms in the choice of jurors in
capital cases. For so long as counsel are
permitted to challenge every intelligent
man for implied bias, on the ground that
he knows something about the case, and
has formed his own ideas upon it, just so
long viii juries in these cases continue to
be imbecile and untrustworthy, and just
so long will shrewd lawyers be able to snap
their fingers at the statutes, and bring off
their ed-handed clients triumphantly. The
law should be so amended as to afford OPP
portunity for putting men of weight and
mark upon capital juries. 1t should open
the door to special intelligence and judicial
capacity. 1t should provide some
guarantee as to the fitness of the jurors,
instead of, as now. carefully encouraging
the selection of unfit men for that office.
Let this be done, and the outrages upon
justice, which are now so common as to be
scarcely surprising, will cease; or it will
be made plainly manifest that the real
public opinion of the State believes in the
common right of homicide for certain
wrongs or supposed wrongs.