The morning call., 1890-04-05
JOURNALISTS AS JURORS.

The codifiers in New Y ork are said to
have agreed upon a provision ia the new
code exemDting newspaper editors, editorial
writer's and reporters from serving on
juries. In that State, rs in California,
newspaper men are not exempt by law from
jury duty; but in practice, Judges do not,
as rule, put them on jury-lists, Sheriffs do
not summon them, and if they are sum-
moned they are generally excused. The
ground for their exemption from this civic
duty is the nature of their calling, which
requires their unremitting and continuous
attention. 1t is, perhaps, not wholly waste
time to consider how far this exemption is
justified in law and ethics.
The law of this State exempts from Jury
duties lawyers and judges, physicians and
officials of hospitals or asylums. teachers,
sailors, officials of the State or the United
States, clergymen, and officials of prisons.
1t likewise empowers the Judges to excuse
from jury duty any person whose interests
would be materially injured by his service
on jury, or any person whose detention in
jury-bex would work injury to the public.
Under this latter head telegraph operators
usually escape jury duty.
1t is difficult to reconcile the exemption
of three Of the most intelligent classes of
the mmunity-lawyers, physicians and
clergymen-with any sound conception of
the jury system. Perhaps it would be I'M
fair to dying man to take his doctor from
his bedside TO sit in a case of disputed
title; but surely, lawyers, who are aecus-
toned to weigh evidence; doctors, who are
keen judges of human nature; clergymen,
who are supposed to be above the ordinary
average in point of education, are the very
classes from which an intelligent jury could
be impaneled. 1t is unreasonable to sup
pose that men equally well qualified to sift
evidence and to detect the truth can be
found in the ranks of merchants, store
keepers, mechanics, and others, from which
our present jury-lists are selected. And it
Is possible that the repeated failures of the
jury system, which so frequently lead TO
cry for its abolition, may arise from the fact
that we do not choose our juries from the
best available material, but, on The con-
trary, carefully eliminate that material
from choice.
1t is, OF course, inconYenient for lawyer
to be taken from his practice, or a doctor
from his patients or a clergyman from his
ecclesiastical duties, to try case at law :;
but so also Is it ineonyenient for 4 mer-
chant to be taken from his c0unting-house,
q obOAC~ACtpCA A1Otu nlo COuslttI, mechanic
from his shop. If sound view of civic
duty requires that citizens shall donate part
of their time to tie administration of JUS
tiee, the burden should, it seems, be laid
equally upon all, and at any rate, no ex-
emption should prevail in favor OF those
who are best qualified to aid in that adj
ministration. The simple truth is that jury
duty is universally regarded as all irksome
burden that each class tries to shift upon
the shoulders of another class, and that.
thus far, in the contest, professional men
have got ahead Of their mercantile fellow
citizens.
Why newspaper men should BIO relieved
from the duty of serving on juries is not
easily discerned. In their daily calling
they are constantly required to weigh evil
dence, and TO balance conflicting testimony:
IN no modern business is the capacity to
arrive at prompt and accurate decisions
more indispensable. OF course, it would be
annoying for journalist or q reporter.
whose daily bread depends on his pro-
duetion Of his daily dole of copy" to have
TO abandon his desk to spend dreary hours
In a JuFy-box; but it is not clear WHY he
should escape grind which must be en-.
dured without protest by the man who
makes cigars, or the man who sells shirt
collars next door. The essence of tho
social compact is that burthens laid upon
the citizen for the public benefit must be
equally laid upon all