Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1883-08-04
THE END.
The Future OF the Jury.

| H0 jury enSdReu III TyItiS IOIk,
the Tennessee eX-Treasurer and de-
faulter, is said to be one of the poor
est ever drawn, and there is nc
dispute as to the cause. In select
| ing it, the rule followed was that
everybody should be excluded who
had "formed an opinion" about the
case. OF course, the number who
had formed no opinion about Polk
in Tennessee is extremely limited.
His defalcatiOn, attempted escape
andrecapture are matters OF COM
mon notoriety all over the country,
and any Tennessean who has moi
formed an opinion about them must
be so grossly ignorant as not to be
worth anything for jury duty. Ac-
cOrdingly, the jury is said to con.
tain two or three men who are unfit
to try any case, least of all an i'm
pOrtant State trial. In other words,
the State is proceeding with case
of great Importance before trib-
unal generally regarded as totally
incompetent.
One of the most curious things
about d trial of this sort is that nine
people out of ten seem to imagine
that there Is something in the ma
ture of jury which makes this eX-
clusiOn from it of all intelligent
persons absolutely necessary. This
IS OF course, really delusion. The
disqualification of jurors who have
"fOrmed an "OpiniOn" is mere
abuse, which has grown up in mod
ern times, and is perpetuated in
part because jury trial itself has be.
come such a mass of abuses that
endeavOrs to reform it in detail at
tract little attention or support.
The only sort of "OpiniOn" which
ought to disqualify man from sit
ting on a jury is an opinion which
cannct be affected by evidence-in
other words, prejudice-and this
is the rule adopted by some of the
best modern Judges. The idea
that the best juryman is one who
knows nothing at all about the
case is all the stronger becausei the
original popularity of jury trial in
England and in this country was
due to its being tribunal made up
or neighbors and acquaintance sup
posed TO be familiar with the facts.
So that we have actually reached IA
point at which what used and
ought to be qualification has become
a disqualification, and what is
known to make juryman worth
less is just what insures his admis-
sion to the box.
The objections to having a jury
composed in whole or in part OF ig-
nOrant men have been frequently
pointed out, and we recur to them
now chiefly for the purpose sof say
lug what has probably occurred to
many of our readers in reading
about the star route cases shat no
Institution can possibly long stand
the strain which we are putting up
on the jury. From various causes
it has already so sunk, not O4iiy i'm
popular estimation, but in that of
lawyers and judges, that the pan
egyrlcS of it that were seriously put
forth hundred years ago now read
like burlesque, and as rule no
one, even IN civil cases, resorts to
it if he wishes perfectly fair judi
cial inquiry. A man usually in
sists on jury, either because he
wants to get smart money out of a
or to air his wrongs by
means OF speeches OF counsel"
So far has this gone that in Massa-
chusetts the Legislature has passed
an act dispensing with juries alto |
gether except when the right to one
IS insisted On-when, of course, ii |
cannot be constitutionally denied. |
Jury trial has, under this act, be-
come what the Darwinians call a
No one who has considered the
grounds on which free institutions
rest would ever be willing to dis
Dense altogether with popular trib-
NAL ofsome sort and the contempt
ntO which jury trials is falling is
chiefly because it is
state trials in which the trbi-
NAL is most severely tested, and
most completely and miserably
ailS. No sane man can be made to
believe that the mode Of trial adOp-
ed in the Star-rOute and Polk cases
8 anything but snare and a delu-
ion and the spectacle of the legal
'fficers of a community like Ten
lessee going deliberately to work
o prepare tribunal for it's own
against wrong doors,
which the entire community regard
18th profound contempt, is a curl
us illustra ion of how the theory
4 institutions may blind men to
heir actual condition.
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