The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1881-09-08
Queer Yerdicts.

How may one explain the odd verdicts
hat are rendered? Often the sum found
inexplicible. Lately a Patterson jury,
n an aggravated breach Of promise case,
'ound for the lady-"damages, $S,337" and
arose, naturally enough, Whence
he 81? Are a jury's scales for weighing
wounded affections SO delicate as that"
One who has become conversant with the
interior methods Of the jury-roem will say
hat the sum may be not q precise valuation
n which each juror c%oncurred, but an aver
of twelve various estimates. Probably
The jury first voted on the general question.
sFor plaintiff or d%efendent?" Finding all
we're in favor of some damages to the plain
they reached an amount by each man
writing sum on a slip of paper, casting all
in a hat, adding them, and dividing the
total by twelve. 1t is contrary to law for
Jurors t, agree beforehand that they will re-
port an average of their several sums as the
verdict; but the law cannot prevent their
an average to see how it strikes
them, and then, if all approve it, reporting
it, and they often do so. If the sums on
the twelve slips should total 800, 044, the
twelfth, or average, would be $8,337.
Preposterons convictions are so 8 etimes
reached by this willingness to compromise
opinions rather than be ''kept out" longer.
A Connecticut wife was prosecuted for
and the ~!ury-after long deliberation-
found her guilty ..of murder in the second
degree. Now, the second degree of muir
der embraces the more hasty, passionate,
undeliberate kinds. The first degree COM
prises the deliberate, premeditated cases,
to which class poison eminently belongs.
It is not probable that any one juror really
considered that a finding of murder IN the
second degree was correct. More likely
some were stubbornly opposed to sending
a...woman to be hanged; and the others,
rather than allow a proved prisoner to have
a chance of escape, which would be allow
ed her by a disagreement and new trial,
consented to unite in saying second de.
gree" and SO securing imprisonment for
life.
1t is fortunate that bad spelling or false
gramme- does not ~vitiate; for there are
many stories of %blunderivg verdicts. But
is there not the maxim, FalsG grammatical
NON vitiat, haec ohm memieis Sc ja~vbSt,
sed retyoOrGdare, hoe Opus est. The re-
vised version Of which is: "Grannmatical
faults are not vicious; it will amuse us to
remember them afterward; but to correct
them there's the rub" 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"
aYou 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: I'VE, the
Jury, find the value of the horse to be $780,"
The court said 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 do
wrong, but we recommend him to mercy"
The Judge asked, somewhat tartly, whether
! they found the prisoner guilty, and they
answered: Not guilty, but we recon-
mend him to mercy" This naturally rails
ed a laugh in the courtroom, after which
the Judge explained that their finding was
equivalent to an entire equittal, which was
at length recorded. On a trial for larceny,
the Jury came back complaining that they
could not agree whether the offense was
grand" or ''petty" until instructed wheth-
er to value the goods at wholesale or at re-
tail prices. Said the judge: Gentlemen,
considering the way the rascal came by the
goods I don't think the court can afford to
wholesale them to him." Verdict OF Crane
larceny Immediately. In some states the
jury decide the punishment as we'll as thu
ofense, hence, in a murder case, an illit
crate foreman wrote the verdict, City
deth."
Why find a verdict for such a silly sun
as 6 IA cents? Sometimes such a finding
NOV bo roo1lv volroh1o Saw thai nnOn1t
are in the habit of crossing your meadow
and you fear that if they persist in doine
SO for a term Of years that footpath viii
become a matter Of right. If, now you SUI
some one person for trespessing and reco1
er 6 IA cents, this will show, at any TIM
after, that the meadow was yours, and thu
t]ownspeople crossed it by sufrence only
Often, however, q nominal verdict means
that, though the defendent was legally il
fault, the jury disapprove the plaintiff
suit.