The morning call., 1895-01-25
WHAT rs THE. GOOD OF GRAND
JURIES2

Ever since the collapse of the Wallace
Grand Jury public opinion has been tend
ing toward an utter want of faith in the
value of the institution. To most citizens
it appears to be an antiquated and obsolete
relic of the judicial methods of the dark
ages, which shocks modern ethics by con-
Quoting its Investigations in secret which
serves no useful purpose in the admins
tration of Justice, and which has brought
to perfection the art of how-not-to-do-it.
No Grand Jury in this community has
ever brought to trial any of the great Grim
inals who have been notorious lawbreakers
and fomentors of corruption. The country
would not have suffered if no Grand Jury
had met for twenty years. And the ques-
ton which people are now asking each
other is, What is the good of maintaining
an institution which is utterly without
usefulness and is mere aggravation to the
public?
The ostensible purpose of a Grand Jury
is to find indictments against criminals in
order that they may be tried by petty
jury. But as a matter of fact most of the
criminals are brought to trial on informa-
tons filed by the District Attorney. That
official does not care to disclose his case to
body of laymen who, though sworn to
secrecy, are VIGOROUSLY given to blabbing.
Evidence has been given in the trials be-
fore Judge Wallace to warrant the present
Grand Jury in finding indictments against
half dozen or more rascals who stuffed
the register at the late election. The body
seems to have preferred to spend its time
in prying into a case in which knave pre-
vailed upon fool to give him $500 in ex-
change for promise to get him appointed
on the police force. Like its predecessors,
the jury, unless it attacks great abuses, will
soon become a laughing-stock. 1t is not
dreaded by Indicators; it, is not an in
strument for the punishment of crime; it
is nothing but an ornamental body, which
puts on the airs of a star-chamber and
winds up an idle career by supplying a
coat of whitewash to the county institu-
tons, which, as it periodically assures us,
are all the best possible institutions in the
best of all possible worlds, and managed by
officials who are angels in disguise, or
seeks the applause of groundlings by few
cheap, fippant criticisms which amount to
nothing.
We borrowed our Grand Jury system
from England, and in that country it was
commended by Blackstone because it Sc
cured the attendance of the nobility and
the landed gentry at the assizes. We have
no nobility or landed gentry in this coun-
try; the members of the Grand Jury are
taken from the general list of taxpayers,
and are supposed to be substantial citizens.
1t has not been remarked, however, in real
life that substantial citizens are as acute
judges of evidence as persons who are
trained to weigh it in the ordinary pursuit
of their calling, and it almost invariably
happens that individuals and corporations
which have reason to dread inquiry into
their transactions have friends on the
Grand Jury who very judiciously act on
the maxim that it is not the part of good
citizen to stir up strife or scandal. In the
days of Ethelred, who reigned in our
mother country, grand iurymen were called
thegns, and they were sworn that they
would find no indictment against an inno-
cent man and would let no guilty man
escape. Grand iurymen at the present day
take similar oath, and so far as the inno-
cent are concerned they probably respect
it; but as to letting no guilty man escape,
to remind grand jurymen of that part of
their oath would involve intolerable in
de1icaov