The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1901-12-10

one In these respects. we say that we.
discharged our duty as Grand Jurors.
fully, faithfully, honestly and conscien-
tiously, to the best of our judgment and
understanding; and we say that the tes-1
timony given before u.s. in the scase I'M
question, was not sufficient, in our best
judgment to warrant or to justify us in
| legal right to publish that testimony
Others who have possession Of that tes-s
timony, or who claim to have possession
of it, have a legal right to publish it, and.
we challenge the publication Of it, to-
! enable the public to judge whether or
not. under ii, We have done our duty.
Judge Blair said to us that the evidence
before us made clear prima facie cases
against the persons complained Of, and
that as that is all the law requires, it
should have resulted in our finding in
dictments. That may be Judge Blair's
opinion. But we differ from him, ~as we
have a fright to do, as much as he has
a right to differ from US. 1t does not.
seem to be the province of the Grand
Jury to indict upon the opinion of the
indict, or not to indict, according to their
own best judgment, of the case, upon the
evidence, conscientiously exercising their
best judgment in the premises. If Grand
Juries had always complied with the in-
structions, or obeyed the beheSts of
courts, to find bills of indictment, 1t is
likely that the Grand Jury, as an insti-
tuition, in our system of laws, would have
been swept out of existence long before
now. We say that the injustice was done
to us; that we have not been guilty of any
| injustice We submit to an unprejudiced
public that it certainly could not be JUS
tice for Grand Jury to be criticised. as
this Grand Jury was without, at least be-
ing given a hearing, an opportunity to
explain. to defend ourselves, or to say
to say, and what we think we had a
right to say, was, that we desired copy
of the testimony that had been given be-
fore us to be laid before the Court, and
| that the Court, after considering that tes-
| timony, would instruct us that we should
find bill, then we would obey that in
struction of the Court as we would con-
slider ourselves obliged to obey any spe-
cific instruction of the Court in the line OF
| bility on the Court. As for ourselves. we
did not propose to take the responsibility
of finding an Indictment against the man
| Sullivan, because we considered that
there was absolutely no evidence to JUS
tify our finding an indictment against
him; we considered that prima facie
case was not made out; we considered
that no case whatever was made out
against him: we were assured by the
Prosecutor that he had no further evil
dence to add anything to the testimony
already before us, and we were convince
ed that under the testimony that there
could not possibly be conviction, and
the advice of the Prosecutor was to find
indictments only where 1t appeared that
a conviction might be secured. Either the
the evidence, upon our own best judg-
ment conscientiously exercised, or upon
the Judgment of the Court. If upon the
former, we did our duty; if upon the lat
ter, the Court should have instructed us
to indict, which the Court did not do;
and hence, in the latter respect also we
did not fail to do our duty.
Judge Blair said that Judge Collins
had charged us that in cases of doubt
on our part as to propriety Of finding
an Indictment upon evidence deem
ed sufficient by the Prosecutor,
the Court requested that before
ignoring a BILL we should apply to
the court for instructions on the subject;
and then Judge Blair continued by saying
that if the evidence should have been
found that it was fair to assume that
it created at least some doubt in our
minds as to its sufficiency, and, If SO,
under the charge before alluded to, our
duty was to apply to the court for in
structions before ignoring bills, and that
our not doing SO, showed that we were
determined to wholly disregard, or will
fully fssobey the instructions of the
court. But Judge Blair's conclusion was
a false sequence. He predicates the as
sertion of our duty to apply to the court
for instructions in cases of doubt on his
assumed theory that there was some
doubt in our minds as to the sufficiency
Of the testimony, but that was only an
assumption of the Judge, for the fact
was that there was not any such doubt
| in the mind ofSany of us, we were unani-
mously agreed that 1t was not case of
doubt; it was case of Clear conclusion
on the part of all of US that the testi-
mony was absolutely insufficient tos war
rant finding bill 1t may be thought