The Somerset press. [volume] (Somerset, Ohio) 1873-1977, 1880-02-05
Our Jury System.
New York st ar.

7 1
There is one man in the warld to-day
and perhaps only the one-who can. say
with any degree of certitude whether
the eleven jurors in the Hayden case
who declared for acquittal were justi-
fed by the fact-we say nothing Of the
eyidence-or if the one recusant MEM
her of the panel who refused to lean
to mercy's side, and he'd out to
clung to the true Interpretation of the
question he was sworn to try. On this
matter the public will remain perhaps
forever uncertain and uninfermed; and
indeed we feel that the public regard
the close of the abortive trial as great
relief, and will he happy to hear no
more of " the great oyer of poisoning !"
in Connecticut, either in private dis
cussion or in judicial developments.
What has the community-public
Justice OF private interests-gained by
the prolonged hearing? 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 see in this turning of q court Of
law into . scientific lecture room, Civ
ing the public easy lessons in medical
Jurisprudence, creating a 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 arsenicai eex-
periments on the human system. These
the results SO far, save the disappoint-
ment of the prosecution at a miscarriage
of Justice, and the long continued sus-
pense of the accused man and his fam
ily, which can hardly Be said to be
atoned for by. an ending which brings
with it . suspicion and stain. .i,,a 6
It is plain, as we said a few days ago,
that the jury system demands some
change. Here is 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 object3 If
not as often as it succeeds, at least 30
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 Charta 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 institutional 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 OF
altogether worthlessf
Get rid of the necessity of unanimous
verdicts.. The required unanimity in
ninety-nine cases out of = hundred is
nothing more or less than required
falsehood and perjury. Had the one
Juror in Hayden's case yielded to sci
fishness or surrendered on compulsion,
the accused would be whollvfrc at thin
moment--free 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 msjority, 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
consciousness of perjury. The law in
tends the unanimous verdict to bs
accordant with the oath, but what doe,
| Justice get in most cases9 A verdict
against the evidence and the oath, die
tated by the prejudice and obstinacy ol
one man, and submitted to with the
false pretenses of unanimity. aass,,ss