The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1913-03-04
TRUE BILLS AND Bills.
the Macon Telegraph

I From the Macon Telegraph.
= At least one judge in Georgia ha
held that grand jury can hear bot
| sides, can at least have statemen
from the defendant" in his own be
! half
The case came up in Ranolph su
perior court, Judge Sheffield presid
, ing. Upon inquiry from a membe
of the grand inquest the judge CAV
these instruction:
THE grand jury is required to
return true bills-nOt bills. The in
tention Of the law is to prevent the
escape of the criminal-not to pre-
vent the investigation of both sides.
Tell the solicitor to instruct the
sheriff to keep the defendant in Gus
tody until the investigation is end
ed; if bill is found he can Jail or
bond the prisoner, and if no bill be
found he can notify the sheriff to-
release him"
The report of this incident is TOLD
in the following:
ITO the Editor of The Telegraph:
Your editorial today on Court Re-
| forms is timely. In it you say, quot
| ing from recent correspondent,
the grand jury should have the
| right to hear both sides. They have
that right under our present law.
I'm 1896 was on the grand jury,
fall term, of Randolph superior
court, when a we'll known citizen
was presented for perjury, and when
the solicitor general demurred to
my request to summon the defend
ant l took the matter to Judge
Sheffield. Here is his reply:
The grand jury is required to
return true 'bills-not bills. The
intention of the law is to prevent
the escape of the criminal, not to
prevent the investigation of both
sides. Tell the solicitor to instruct
the sheriff to keep the defendant in
custody until the investigation is
ended If a bill is found he can jail
or bond the prisoner, and if no bill
he can notify the sheriff to release
him
And no bill was found, because
ullCIC W a. ~ oStAClAJ III
This by way of elucidating and COM
mending your stand. Respectful
ly, ANDREW P. RIVES."
The instructions given by Judge
Sheffield, who was one of our best
judges, now dead, may be good law,
but it is not the practice. Solicitors
general and grand juries generally
take the other view. Both usually
like to make a record"
1t strikes us that the best record"
for both jury and solicitor should be
the greater percentage of convic-
tions and not the big number of in
dictments made.
We have been told by a local au-
thority (but how true We know not)
that the recent grand jury in Bibb
broke the record" in the number of
indictments. If this is true it will
be interesting to follow the results
as to the percentage of convictions.
There is no redress when twenty
odd good citizens of a higher order
of intelligence hale to the prisoners
dock innocent men-not Intentionally
but because of a weak joint in the
armor of the law, or a wrong COR
struction of that law, they are not
permitted to go into full investiga-
ton of the facts when they are OBJ
tainable by the opening of the jury
room door to one or two, or more,
other witnesses who sometimes know
more about the facts than anybody
else. The grand jury in such cases
need not necessarily believe the
statement of defendant" any more
than trial jury need credit the state
ment of a prisoner at the bar, for
such is the instruction of the trial
Judge to the jury in cases of the lat
ter kind.
No free citizen in land of liberty
ought to be robbed of his freedom,
and be subjected to cost and humilia-
ton on purely ex parte hearing. 1t
is true that the grand jurors are in
structed by the Judge to return bills
in cases where the evidence is suffi-
cient to warrant a prima facie case;
but those instructions should not de-
bar the jury from getting all the
light it can before an indictment is
made. Further, under the ruling of
Judge Sheffield, it would appear that
the original intention of the law was
not to prevent hearing of both
sides, but to relieve the grand jury of
the necessity of passing on close and
scientific rules of evidence, such as
are threshed out by opposing lawyers
before a trial jury.
OF course, the present writer is
only layman, and not learned in the
law, but the science of law is nothing
but the science of common sense and
/ justice-and the aim of the law is
| to do justice in a common sense way.
! A SUICIDAL POLICY.