The Red Cloud chief., 1881-09-15

Qseer veraiet&
How may one explain the odd YER
diets thst are rendered.? Often D
sum found seems inexplieab'e- Lately
q Paterson jury. in an aggravated
breach-of- promise case. found for the
lady-.damayes. o.. s37;'' and inquiry
arose naturally enough. whence the
S7e Are q jury's scales for weighing
wounded affections 30 delicate q sthatF
One who has become ~conversant with
the interior methods Of the jury-room
will say that the sum may be not q pre-
/ else valuation in which each juror con-
CURED. but an average Of twelve yari-
OTIS estimates. Probably the jury tirsi
voted on the general question. "for
plaintiff or defendant Finding all
were in favor Of some damages Tor
plaintiff. they reached an amount by
each man writing n sum on a sup Oh
paper, casting all in a hat, adding
them, aud dividing the total by twelve.
1t is contrary TO Law for jurors 10 agree
beforehand that they will report an av-
erage OF their several sums as the ver-
diet; but the law cannot prevent their
taking an average To see how
il strikes them. and then. If all approve
il. reporting it, and they often do so.
II the sums on the twelve slips should
total 800. GA. the twelfth. or average,
would be IS. 1897.
Preposterous convictions are some
times reached by this willingness 10
compromise opinions rather than be
kept out longer. A Connecticut
wife vas prosecuted for killing her
husband by slow poisoning. and the jury
after long deliberation found her
guilty of murder in the second degree.
| Now, the second degree Of murder en-
braces the more hasty. passionate. I'M
deliberate kinds. The first degree COM
prises the deliberate, premeditated
| eases, to which class poison eminently
belongs. 1t is not probable that any
| one Juror really considered that a find
ing of murder in the second degree was
correct. More likely some were stub
bornly opposed TO sending a woman to
be hanged; and the others. rather than
allow a proved prisoner to have the
chance Of escape, which would be al
lowed her by a disagreement and new
trial, consented to unite in saying ''sec-
! ond degree" and so securing imprison-
ment for life.
1t is fortunate that bad spelling or
false grammar does not v~itiate; for
there are many stories OF laundering
verdicts. thus. IN a lawsuit for a cow.
the jury returned: I'VE. the jury. find
the cow in the plaintiff" The Judge,
as gravely as might be, told the Clerk
to help them to write it, but the Clerk
could devise no better forms than these:
"You say that you find the plaintiff in
| the cow?' "You say that you find the
property of the cow in the plaintiff"
etc. The Judge, at last, had TO draft
the verdict himself. In a horse case
the Jury made return: 1--WE. the jury,
| find the value OF the horse to be one
hundred and fifty dollars" The Court
| said that this would not do at all. What
the law wished to know was not so
much what the horse was worth as to
whom it belonged. At the end of an
English trial for false %pretenses. the
jury said: I'VE find he done wrong,
| but we recommend him to mercy" The
Judge asked, somewhat tartly. whether
they found the prisoner guilty or not
guilty, and they answered: Not guilty,
but we recommend him to mercy"
This naturally raised a laugh in the
courtroom, after which the Judge ex-
| planned that their finding was equiva.
lent to an entire acquittal, which was
at length recorded. On a trial for lar
ceny. the jury came back complaining
that they could not agree whether the
,n,,en ,yao s.rrandS M. ssnattyr' until
instructed whether to value the goods
at wholesale or at retail prices. Said
the Judge: Gentlemen. considering
the way the rascal came by the goods,
l don't think the Court can afford to
wholesale them to him." Verdict of
grand larceny Immediately. In some
States the jury decide the punishment
as well as the offense, hence, in a muir
der case, an illiterate foreman wrote the
verdict: "Gilty, deth."
Why find a verdict for such n silly
sum rs six and One-fourth cents? Some
times such a finding may be really valu-
able. Say that people are in the habit
of crossing your meadow, and you fear
that if they persist in doing so for a
term of years the foot-path will become
a matter of right. If, now, you sue
some one person for trespassing and re-
cover six and One-fOYrth cents. this will
show, at any time after, that the mead
ow was yours, and the t~ownspeOple
crossed it by sufferance only. o ten.
however, a nominal verdict means that,
though the defendant was legally in
fault, the jury disapprove the plaintiff
suit. A curious instance is Just re-
ported from England. One Fourth of
July night an American in London let
off some rockets, and the sticks fell into
the garden of a neighbor. Neighbor's
wife was sitting in the garden; and
either the rush of the rockets when they
assembled or the crash of the sticks
when they fell, frightened her into
chronic hysteria and neuralgia Law
suit; in which the jury assessed the
damages at one farthing. The plaintiff
complained to the Queens Bench of
this verdict as absurd. But the Judges
said that the meaning was clearly this:
I'VE can moi say that in strict law the
plaintiff had no right to complain, but
the case is so small and contemplate
that we give a verdict for 4 farthing."
Perhaps the oldest instance is one
narrated of the Superior Court. At
the close of the week a cause was called
when. behold, one juror only was re-
naming in attendance of the whole
number summoned. He was told to
take his place in the jury-box. He
had previously exhausted all efforts and
excuses to avoid serving, and, naturally,
was not at all pleased at being caught
in this way. He claimed the entire
routine. heard the speeches and the
Judges charge, and then gravely said
to the Court that 1.-The jury desired to
retire" Retire he did, and remained
.out" SO long that the Judge passed
an order for a sealed verdict. Next
morning Court was opened. the sealed
envelope broken and the verdict pro-
duced; thread: The jury cannot agree"
IN. y. Times.