St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1891-01-18
THE JURY SYSTEM.

The recent setting aside of the YER
dict in the FLACK case in New York
calls to mind similar result in the
same state few years ago when JACOB
SHARP was the defendant. There is
more trial by newspaper in New York
city than anywhere else in the Union,
and it has been practically impossible
for one accused to get fair trial there
of late when popular opinion has de-
manded his conviction. Most of the
people who have suffered by this condi-
ton of affairs have probably been
guilty; but in every case in which the
verdict has been reversed it has not
been because the evidence presented
did not Justify the jury's determination,
but because the judge presiding has
made errors in law which the court of
appeals has held to have yitiated the
proceedings.
1t is not very likely than any legisla-
ton which will be made in Minnesota
under our recent constitutional amend
ment on the jury question will add
materially to the satisfaction with
which decisions of courts of law
will be received. If the jury system
were abolished altogether, it would not
improve matters at all. Judges are as
fallible as laymen in their view of JUS
tice, which is the most essential element
in righteous verdicts. Law, in the first
place, was simply matter of custom.
and what justice there was in it was
purely accidental. AS long as it re-
manned in the hands of the lawyers eX-
clusively, there was simply constant
futile effort making to force new prob
lens into the mould of antiquated prece-
dents in which they did not fit. The
Improvements and development which
have been made in law have been by
the work OF jurors, who have always
been Iaymen, and of legislatures drawn
from every walk of life. Men trained
to the law get very quickly to look Oh it
as black art of great sacredness, and
it is only the class who suffer from its
deficiencies that have the courage TO
treat good deal of it with the contempt
it deserves, and amend and repeal such
portions as meet with their criticism.
A system of laws will never be ar
rived at which will secure COM
plete justice to Iitigants. In al
most every case which arises in court
the only thing which will secure justice
is compromise, and the court which
has to decide, and not to suggest
decision Of the. matter in dispute, has to
work partial injury to one side or the
other. All that can be expected is a re-
suit which will be as just as is consist
ent with the cause being decided at all.
A very common criticism on trials by
jury concerns their uncertainty. 1t is
very frequently said, even by lawyers,
that ''if the court were going to hear this
matter one could foresee the result,
but that nobody can tell what jury
will do" There is not very much in this.
because no one can tell what court
will do, either, or whether what it does
will be right. Take, for example, this
JACOB SHARP case, which we have be-
fore alluded to. SHARP was accused Of
bribery, or something of the kind, in
connection with the Broadway street
railway matter He was convicted on
certain evidence which Judge BAR
RETT, who presided at the time, ad
mitted. Judge BARRETT is counted one
OF the very best nisi prius judges in
New York. From the verdict an ap-
peal was taken to the intermediate
appellate court, under tine New York sys-
tenn the general term of the supreme
court, and Judge BARRETT's rulings
were unanimously sustained. The court
of appeals, when the matter reached it,
unanimously held the other way, and
declared that Judge BARRETT's course
in admitting the evidence objected to
was in violation of the most elementary
legal principles. If either of these
tribunals should be rated higher than
the other in the caliber of the men COM
posing it, it is the lower one; but, no
matter how that may be, it shows that
law, even when administered without
iuries, is bound to be uncertain, be-
cause it is not an exact but an empirical
science.
There are great many things to be
said against the jury system, but it
ought to be handled gently, because it
has accomplished great things for the
world