The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1881-08-04
Queer terdicts.

Queer yerdicts.
How may one explain the odd YER
diets that are rendered. Often the
sum found seems inexplicable. Lately
! Paterson jury; in an aggravated
brBach-6 Of promise case, found for the
lady-s damages, 8,337;' and inquiry
arose naturally enough. :. whence the
e7p Are jury's scales for weighing
wounded affections so delicate as thatP"
One Who has become conversant with
the interior methods of the jury-room
will say that the sum may be not pre-
cise valuation in which each juror con-
Cured, but an average of twelve vari-
Gus estimates. Probably the jury first
voted on the general question, "For
plaintiff or defendantP' Finding all
were in favor of some damages for
plaintiff, they reached an amount by
each man writing q sum on a slip of
paper, casting all in q hat, adding
them, and dividing the total by twelve.
1t 10 contrary to law for jurors to agree
beforehand that they will report an av-
etage of their several sums as the YER
dict, but the law cannot prevent their
taking an average to see how
it strikes them, and then, if all approve
1t, reporting it; and they often do So
II the Sums on the twelve slips should
total 800; O44; the twelfth, Or average,
would be SO, 337.
Preposterous convictions are some
times reached by this willingness to
compromise opinions rather than be
kept out" longer. A Connecticut
wife was prosecuted for killing her
husband by slow poisoning. and the jury
after long deliberation-fqund her
guilty of murder in the second degree.
Now, the second degree of murder en-
braces the more hasty, passionate. uti-
deliberate kinds. The first degree COM
prises the deliberate, premeditated
cases, to which class poison eminently
belongs. 1t is not probable that any
one juror really considered that q find
ing of murder in the second degree was
correct. More likely some were stub
bornly opposed to sending q woman to
be hanged; and the others, rather than
allow proved prisoner to have the
chance of escape, which would be al
lowed her by disagreement and new
trial, consented to unite in saying ''sec-
ond degree" and SO securing imprison-
ment for life.
It is fortunate that bad spelling or
false grammar does not vitiate; for
there are many stories of laundering
verdicts. thus, in a lawsuit for COW,
the jury returned: 1--WE, 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 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: 1--WE find he done wrorg,
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 laugh in the
courtroom, after which the Judge ex-
planned that their finding was equiva-
lent to am entire acquittal, which was
ut length recorded. On a trial for lar
ceny, the jury came back complaining
that they could not agree whether the
offense was grand" or "petty'' 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,
I 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 q muir
der case, an illiterate foreman wrote the
verdict: "Gilty, deth."
Why find a verdict for such silly
sum as six and 0ne-fourth cents? Some
times such 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 q
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-fourth cents, this will
show, at any time after, that the mead
ow was yours, and the townspeople
crossed it by sufferance only. Often,
however, a nominal verdict means that,
though the defendant was legally in
fault, the jury disapprove the plaintiff 8
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 q neighbOr. Neighbor 8
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:
1--WE can not say that in strict law the
plaintiff had no right to complain, but
the case is so small and contemplate
that we give verdict for y farthing."
Perhaps the oldest instance is one
narrated of the Superior Court. At
the close of the week 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. ?. Times.
Tangier.
It is very ancient city, the oldest
CITY but one in the world. The M0ors