Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1900-01-10
MISTRlAL IN MEARES CASE.
Judge Buchanan Indulges In a TRADE
Against the jury.

Against the jury.
After remaining in the room from
Wednesday afternoon at 5 o'clock
until Friday morning at II, the jury
charged with the bastardy case against
Professor Meares, reported a mistrial.
A correspondent, giving an account of
the trial, says that Judge Buchanan
called the jury out of their room at IL
o'clock Friday morning, and when
they announced that there was no
possibility of reaching verdict, he
began to speak to the jurymen in a
very novel and plain-spoken manner
in regard to the case. Their inability
to agree, he stated, was matter of
much regret, and that nothing brought
so much reproach upon the admins
tration of justice as mistrial. The
jury had spent three or four days in
hanging out, and had cost the county
about $3.50, whereas even verdict
against the defendent would have put
upon him bond for only $500; that
the jury had spent more money by
hanging on and fooling around than
the amount that would have been ex.
acted by conviction.
"You, gentlemen" said the judge,
"probably will be the first TO speak
lightly of courts and to say that JUS
tice cannot be gotten that the law
yers fool around in the courts and de-
lay justice, while the truth of the mat
ter is the lawyers, the solicitor and the
court do their duty, and you men have
not the manhood to do yours. You
have no one but yourselves to blame
for the miscarriage of justice. The
state and the defendant are entitled to
verdict and you have acted like a
set of school boys locked up three or
four days, when you should have
agreed upon a verdict. If the public
would cultivate a higher standard OF
obligation and men were to understand
that when they take an oath TO do
their duty, they should do it honestly
instead of fritteriDg their time away
and vaccilating by reason of feeling
of kindness for a neighbor, or some
fancied thing in the evidence, more
exact Justice would be done, and there
would be no more reproach upon the
administration of justice through the
neglect of the jurors to do their duty
They seem to think it is sleight OF
hand thing when they should 60 on q
jury. A man taking an oath to per-
form a duty on the jury should meet
his obligations as he would his promise
to pay note. Jurors don't do it, and
because of the fact that we have to
have jurors to try this sort of cases,
justice is not done.
81 want to burn that idea into you,
gentlemen, that justice has miscarried
in this case, because you did not have
the manhood to carry out the law and
the obligation you took. And want
you to know l know it, and / want
every Juror to understand when he
comes into the court where 1 am to
preside, and takes an obligation to de-
eide case and does not do it, that
intend to tell him about it and make ii
hot for him.
"Another jury may have to 60 over
this same thing because of your lack
of manhood and nothing else. 1t is
because you all did not understand
your own oath and did not keep it to
decide this case according to the evi.
dence. I want you to understand that
I know it and everybody else knows it,
and when it becomes a matter of op.
probrium for juries to make a mistrial
everybody will reproach them for it,
because they did not keep their obliga-
tions they took to agree on verdict
and further the administration of JUS
| tice.n