The Marietta journal. [volume] (Marietta, Ga.) 1866-1909, 1900-05-03
fAdver tisement.l
THE JURY BOXES.

Editors Journal have read
the letter of Judge Gober publish
ed in your paper in which he says:
For the benefit of those who
wish to know, the Judge of the
Superior Court has nothing to do
with the making of the jury-boxes
or the revision of them. He is
not present when they are revised.
He draws the juries without any
possible means of knowing who is
drawn until he reads the names in
open court. The Judge of the Su-
perior Court appoints two Jury
Commissioners each two years,
and / was in office six years before
had appointed all of them; and
my successor will have to be in
office a like six years before he
can appoint all of them. For
Judge of the Superior Court to un-
dertake to make up the jury-boxes
of a county is a clear usurpation
of power, and would render such
officer liable to impeachment.
For Cobb county four traverse
juries of 36 men each are drawn
each year or IA in year or 2SS
in the two years between the re-
visions of the box. There are SIT
men in the traverse jury box, or
III other words, we can use in the
two years only about one man III
three now in the jury box. So in
the Grand Jury box we draw four
Grand Juries each. year. or eight in
the two years or 240 between the
revisions. There are 316 names
in the box. 240 are all the
Grand Jurors that can be used
in the two years. Now when the
presiding Judge has no means of
telling who he will draw until he
reads the names in open court,
when he does not meet with the
Commissioners or is not present at
the revision, when all he has to
do with it is to appoint the Com
missioners, it is difficult to under
stand why there should be any
misrepresentation about it.
In the counties of the circuit
other than Cobb which have only
one week of court instead of two,
as in Cobb, there are drawn lust
one-half as many jurors, that is
1870 Grand Jurors and IA Traverse
Jurors, within the two years be-
tween the revisions, and that is
all that can be used"
This letter ought to satisfy any
rational mind, relative to the
making up of the jury box, etc,
but it appears that some people
don't understand why they are not
in the jury box, at all, and if in
the jury box why they are not
drawn oftener, if drawn at all
and why some Jurors may be drawn
fer several successive terms of the
court and why if once in the box
they should be thrown out at all
and why some men are on the iu-
~ as tales jurors oftener than
others.
The board of jury commission
ers are made up as explained IL
the above named letter. The law
says they shall be discreet persons.
They have the sole power of max
ing up the jury boxes. The law
says further that they shall select
upright and intelligent men to
serve as jurors. They are the sole
judges Of the uprightness and in
telllgence of the men who are put
in the box and it is no reason that
man who is not in the Jury box.
is not considered as intelligent or
upright by these commissioners
One can see from the above figures
that 1T would be useless and an
unnecessary expense to the county
for these commissioners and their
clerk to sit possibly three times
the length of their usual sitting
and placing in the boxes a large
number of names that could not
possibly be reached and in making
up lists of them, for no purpose
but that their names should be in
the jury box. The law doesn't
even presume that every upright
and intelligent man in the county
shall be in the jury boxes during
any single term of two years, but
only a sufficient number of them
to do the work of the court. 1t is