Arizona republican., 1902-01-14

Few men in public life have shown themselves to be as gifted as MT Jus tice Brewer of the SUI BREWER preme court the ION United States, in taking THE JURY. cc,nplete view of every subject pre- sented, in going to the roots of a ques- 1 tion. and in clearly stating the prin- ciples invoived,-gifts which have marked him as one of the ablest of the great men who have honored the highest court in the world And it is not alone in the discharge of his du- ties as a supreme court justice that he has exhibited these rare talents. As 9 public speaker and as an essay ist, he has the same happy faculty of presenting in a wholly convincing man ner. and in superb English. his ilunl- mating ideas. In all the discussions of the merits and faults of the American jury system-the system upon which, practically, the administration Of our laws is based-there has been no clearer exposition Of it's weaknesses. the necessity of reform. and yet the importance of retaining the jury as the chief feature of our legal macIin- cry, than is found in Justice Brewers article on the jury in the International Monthly for January. from which the following extracts are taken:
 If the jury is to be preserved, some things must be done-things necessary u elevate it's character. make 1t 9 fair representative of the highest intelli- gence of the community or at least of the average. and not. as it now gen orally is, of the lowest intelligence. I make these suggestions as helpful in the matter First. give them better compensation As rule they are paid no more than the ordinary day wages of an unskilled laborer, and it is gen orally true that poor pay brings poor service. Better eight jurors reason ably paid than a dozen poorly paid. Secondly. free the work of the juror from some of the disagreeable annoy anCes which now often attend it. He should not be compelled to work more hours than the judge. To shut him up and keep him confined day and night is a crime against society. He is treated too often as an object of sus- picion-as though he were probab bly dishonest and must be specially shild- ed from temptation. Why should he be shut up while the judge is not? A bad man on the bench or in the jury box will surely find ways to be tempted and few things are more calculated to degrade his office in the sight of the juror. and to bring out all the evil that is in him, than the consciousness that he is an object of suspicion.
 t.ar iTnnDr- tant case the struggle of counsel is to secure one or more jurors who are friendly to their client or in sympathy with the cause or interest with which he is Identified, or who may be easily influenced by appeals to prejudice or sympathy The intelligent business man, the mechanic, and the farmer too quickly respond to the voice of the judge demanding justice, hence, if pos sible, they must be excluded and the ignorant, easily moved by appeals of counsel. secured. Let the rule of unanimity be abolished and the result determined by the conclusions of two thirds or three-fourths of the jury, ard this struggle after the single helpful juror will largely disappear. And why should it be deemed esential? Neither in legislative halls, among judges, in arbitration proceedings, nor in scarcely any other body called to make de termination, is it the rule. In my judgment, the great objection to the jury system. as it is administered to- day, and the one which more than any other threatens it's overthrow. is this rule of unanirnity. Were it abol- ished, less time would be wasted in impaneling jury, and better class of jurors would ordinarily be selected. More than that, the truth would be more certainly determined.
 But the final question is, whether it is worth while to preserve the system. even with the amendments suggested. For myself, I believe in the jury, and that it should be preserved as d fac tor in judicial investigations, and for these, among other, reasons. It is a tribunal which comes into being with the occasion and vanishes with the end of the trial. The community soon for gets who sat upon it. and there is no building up of prejudice against the individuals who composed it. How seldom do we see in the papers any complaint of the jurors who try a case. while the judge who presides at the trial is often thereafter the subject of bitter attack,
 Again. there are many questions whose determination can not be ac- cording to any strict rules of measure meut. and vet they must Do settled Is there any better way than, as it were, by asking the community how they should be settled? And that is done by leaving them to a jury, who, in theory at least announce the average judg- rrent Take suits for personal injuries. Who shell say how much an arm or a leg is wC:th?
 And. finally, it is of inDortance that the people a whole should realize that the administration of justice is a part of their work. We cannot too often repeat the statement that it popular goyernmen is to continue. all