St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1895-03-25

VI QCCloeo CctSSS. LIS VI lClo VI iNobiN
with references to them. He lays
them about him, piling them about
the various points of his case as
the military engineer raises his re-
doubts, and calculates the strength
of his position by the number of
pat" cases he can find. The older
the case the better. It is as impreg-
nable as Gibraltar. Conditions may
have changed, the reason of the law
may have departed, but the prece-
dent remains. What should be the
law" is a question a lawyer never
asks; there is something of profana-
ton in it. What is the law is the
sole permissible question.
Thus the lawyer inevitably comes
to regard as immutable that which
is established. He is the conserVa-
tive of society; a useful element, of
course, checking rashness, but some
times impeding healthful progress
by his infiexible opposition to the
changes proposed by those who be-
Iieve that all the wisdom is not in
the past and that society exists on
capital borrowed from its ancestors.
So in this matter of the grand jury
as an adjunct of our system Of
Justice. It is rare that a lawyer will
not be found to defend it and praise
it and declare that it is the under
pinning of the liberty of the citizen.
And yet for twenty years the state
of Wisconsin has managed to get
along very comfortably without
grand jurieS, and her citizens have
not found their liberties any the less
secure, or the administration of
justice any the less certain. When
North Dakota framed it's constitu-
ton the system was abolished in
spite of the opposition of the law
yers in the convention, who warned
off the sacrilegious hands of the
iconoclasts, only securing the anus
ing provision that a judge might
summon a grand jury if he deemed
it essential. No judge has ever
called the inquisitors to the aid of
justice in that state under this pre-
cautionary clause.
The existence of the grand jury
only doubles the process of bringing
an offender to trial. 1t is an inter
mediate body between the examining
and committing magistrate and the
trial court, to decide if the accused
shall stand trial. If it says nay, no
court has power to bring the Of
fender to trial; the failure to indict
unlocks the prison doors and sets
the accused free. The coroner's
jury may have found the fact of
crime committed by the accused; the
examining magistrate may have
reached the same conclusion and
committed or bound him over to
await the action of the grand jury,
but if it says nay the man goes
scot free.
The objection to the grand jury is
not at all its expense or cumbersome
ness, but that its processes are Sc
cret and eX-parte, and it is super
fluous. The first intima ton the ac-
cused has is the bench warrant
served on him, if he has had no pre-
liminary examination. He has no
chance to avoid the stigma of an in
dictment by offering rebutting proof;
he cannot appear in person, nor can
he ask that witnesses in his behalf
be summoned. Behind guarded doors,
sworn to secrecy, the inquisitorial
body sits and decides. Where the
grand jury system is abolished the
justice of the peace or other commit
ting magistrates sits, as he does with
us now. The accused is brought be-
fore him. Both sides are heard. The
proceedings are public. The ac-
cused has the benefit of counsel and
every defense he has. If the court
find that an offense has been commit
ted, and that, after hearing both
sides, there is reasonable cause to
believe the accused guilty Of it, he
is bound over to the trial court, and
the county attorney presents to the
latter an information, another term
for an indictment, stating the charge,
and to this the defendant pleads and
goes to trial.
No state that has been fortunate
enough to overcome the conservat-
ism of it's lawyers and has abolished
the grand jury could be persuaded
to return to it. This is the senti-
ment in Wisconsin and in North
Dakota, the one after twenty and
the other after six years experience
with it. If in either of these states
a 1.-THE of the misfortunes and dan
gers, the failures of justice, the
diminution of the safeguards of the
citizen that are predicted as the re-
suit of the abolition had happened,
there would not be that general ac-'
quiescence in the change now exist
ing. The fact is that the conditions
that made the grand jury necessity
have long since passed away, but,
| with that tenacity of life shown by
customs long established, it main
tains it's hold, except among the
more progressive states. Some day
Minnesota will join these latter.
GONE TO SEED.
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