The Hattiesburg news. (Hattiesburg, Miss.) 1908-1917, 1911-07-12
THE HATTIEsBUR NEWS

ing real property in the hands of the
dead is therefore thing of the past.
| But there are so many things in
I the organic laws, statutes and deci-
l sions of our state, devised by men
'ong since dead, which instead of pro-
| tecting the innocent and furnishing
the guilty, have, in actual operation
| Just the opposite effect. and which our
courts and the members OF our pro
fession feel bound to follow and en-
force, that I am constrained TO liken
our situation, intellectually, to that of
property held In the hands of the
dead. We submit to laws made by
dead legislators and make no attempts
to replace them with something bet
ter; We follow the decisions OF dead
judges, when the plainest dictates of
reason and common sense require
that they be overruled. In every 9TH
er field of human activity, improve
ment is the order of the day. In our
profession it is becoming increasingly
difficult, all the time, to tell what
the law is, and this applies both to
our civil and criminal Jurisprudence.
Complete Court Reorganization.
There is neither time nor space in
a paper like this to do more than
make a few suggestions. The first
suggestion desire to make is that all
judicial districts, composed of more
than one county, and all terms Of
court, as now constituted, be abol-
ished, and there be organized In esch
county one or more courts of general
Jurisdiction, ready, at all times. to
open and transact business. whenever
necessary.
Let grand and petit juries be &C.
lected for a period Of three or six
months In advance by commissioners
selected for that purpose. Then,
when an offense is committed. thee
need be no waiting for the next tie,
Of court. AS soon as an arrest Is maze
the grnad jury could be impanel, |,
the case investigated, and if an indf :
ment were found, the defendant COZ 4
] be at once placed on trial. In th
way. any ordinary case should lie
heard and determined and the d.
! PENDANT either acquitted or convict
1 within 80 days from the commissi
! of the offense
| Another way in which we ALLOW
| ourselves to be tied to the dead pc It
is in requiring petit juries to be unsl-
imous in returning verdicts. This IS
\ the only instances that l now recall IN
y which perfect unanimity is required.
The Legislators, who make the laws,
\ under which the juries act, do so by a
majority The judges. who review
their verdicts SGSfG ~ 81 "a
= them, hy najortyt"s A4uroo asa z
- court of the United States decides tie
most momentous questions by a vote
Of five to four.
q There is no absolute uniformltt In
nature. Every blade of grass dth RS
n from his brother. No two lesshAs n
Z the forest are ever of precisely 1 g
v same form and structure. In all the
sands on all the shores of The worl1
a.. no two grains are never exactly alike.
Men differ In their opinions about
everything on earth. No elections
are ever unanimous where candidates
oppose each other. Ito keep the rec
ord straight now except from this
remark one or two counties way down
on the Rio Grande.o
: Present Requirements Defeat Justice.
"The requirements that verdicts be
unanimous very often defeats justice,
as every lawyer knows. 1t should be
provided by law that nine members
of a jury should return a verdict in
every case except where the death
penalty is inflicted. In that case the
verdict could still be unanimous. |
make this concession in Difference to
that policy of the law which appears
to become suddenly aware of the sane
tity of human life, and especially of
the life of the defendant, after he has
been duly indicted and placed on trial
for capital offense. Until he reaches
that exalted position he must scuf1e
round and take his chances, with the
balance Of us.
"Of course, to this method of pro-
cedure the old objection will be raised
that 1t would be an attempt to rail
road the defendant to the peniten-
tiary, but this objection will lose
much Of its force when We take into
consideration the celebrity and dis
patch with which crimes are ccm-
mitted
| UIr tb1 o.ooSs..ls.