Daily Los Angeles herald., 1883-03-28
A sham Bulwark of Freedom
Modify the Jury.

A sham HuIwark of Freedom
Modify the Jury.
Having imbibed the fine old humbug
notions Of the jury--the bulwark or Pal.
ladium Of the rights Of that portion OF
the so called Saxon race which is com
pounded OF elements fully three-fourths
Britons, Romans and Danes--it required
some time to enable us to divest our
selves of the time-honored traditional
superstition, especially as we had gone
through the training, eventuating in ad-
mission to the bar, which is supposed
to solidify ones belief in that juridical
Mumbo Jumbo. Very shortly, indeed,
were we emancipated from the domi-
nance of superstition which is as ven.
cradle as ii is fallacious. The stupid
discharge, and tho still more stupid
avoidance Of their duties, by the mem.
bers of the average jury, quickly eman.
eipated us from this old and antiquated
notion. The jury is fraud and a
delusion, except in the rare instances in
which honest men happen to be impan,
neled.
: We have never had this fact more
thoroughly borne in upon us than in the
case of the jury which recently tried N.
L. Dukes, Democratic member of the
Legislature of Pennsylvania who
had been indicted by Fayette
county jury for the Staying of Capt.
Fl. C. Mutt, the Cashier of the State
Treasurer Of the Keystone State. This
unspealable wretch had been recog.
nized suitor for the hand of Capt. Nutts
daughter. All ut once the unfortunate
Mutt received communications from
Dukes informing him that he had en-.
joyed the most peculiar favors which a
woman could bestow from his daughter,
asserting that other men had been simi.
larly distinguished and plainly intimat.
ing to theappalled father that he had bet
ter arrange to have an abortion at once
performed upon the person of his own
daughter, beautiful creature, who was
but a mere child. The cold.blooded
infamy of these letters is something
that passes belief. Capt. Mutt replied
like man and gentleman, pointing oui
the singular atrocity OF the letters which
he had received, and winding up by de
manding the only reparation which
Dukes had it in his power to bestow,
with the significant intimation that the
State of Pennsylvania, in the event OF o
failure to do justice in the premises, was
not, thereafter, large enough to hold
both. Dukes, in his reply, was careful
to state that he would be unarmed when
the interview which the justly enraged
father demanded should be aecorded-a
cowardly and hypocritical stratagem, as
the event proved. The interview took
place, with the result of finding the
father unarmed and the bloody minded
seduoer "heeled." Dukes, absolutely
without any iustiiable provocation, af-
ter having admitted chat he had seduced
the daughter, shot down, in cold blood,
her aged father.
Surely, never since the world began
was there case which appealed more
poignantly to the sympathies OF a jury
We have carefully read the letters oi
Dukes to the man he murdered, and we
have no hesitation in saying that any
one who had perused them, and who
had red corpuscles in his veins, could
not hesitate either in eonYicting the
brute or in pulling rope which should
send him into eternity. Yet strange to
say, this brutal jury not only failed to
agree, but actually acquitted the
phenomenal criminal of the age. In
lengthy commu pieations, compounded
of innumerable sentences, Dukes had
appended his name to many disgusting
sentiments, any one of which, with
wholesome human beings, would have
made their fingers itch to take his blood.
During much of the testimony the
judge who tried the case was observed
to weep. When the astonishing verdict
was brought in, he was overwhelmed
with pain and grief, and he told the
jury that they had failed to do then
duty.
Since its discharge, one of the jury
men has been beaten so badly that his
life is despaired of. Quite number oil
his associates, also, have been roughly
handled. The kilograms, the other day
advised us that a meeting of the citi
zens of his native town had waited upor
Dukes and notified him to leave within
twenty.four hours. The Legislature, o.
which he was member, is considering
a resolution for his expulsion, which will
undoubtedly pass.
And yet jury found this wretch
guiltless, and turned him out on human
kind, to re-enaet his Infamous role. Adj
hitting that such a jury cannot often be
found, the fact of its requiring a una,
nimity of verdict TO condemn mur.
derer is still a reminiscence of an Anglo
Saxon Danish and utterly barbarou.
superstition, which moulds our jury sys
TEN, Snch jury as that which tried
Dukes cannot be often got together; but
the fact, nevertheless, remains, that any
single pin.headed man can "hang Q
jury, when the hanging should really be
made operative on the malefactor whom
it is trying.
The whole vicious system should be
changed at once. The trial and ac
quittal of Dukes simply points the mora
aud adorns the tale of our utterly indie
fensble adhesion to old and imbecile
methods. Modify the jury, by al
means; or, ii not modified, let it be
abolished.
.s------.-----s=~-.--
THE rain which is now prevalent i.
worth millions OF dollars to Las Angelo.
county; and it is, altogether, the most