Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1916-06-01
WOMEN AND JURY SERVICE

All the anti-suffrage arguments go
to pieces on examination. One of the
scarecrows oftenest held up to fright
en- women has been the assertion that
the ballot box and the jury box must
go together They do not go together
in the case of men, of course, many
men being exempt from jury duty
without being excluded from suffrage.
However, the objection on this
ground has been persistently urged.
1t is therefore of interest to learn
that there is only one state of the
twelve suffrage States where women
are required to do jury service, and
only four of the others in which they
are even permitted to do so. Mrs.
Mary V. Boyd, in charge of the re-
search department at National Stuff
rage Headquarters, has got at the
facts, by painstaking correspondence
with the legal authorities in the var
ious suffrage States.
In Idaho, women may be required
to serve, but the Attorney General
says they are very rarely called upon
to do so.
In Washington, women are eligible
to do jury duty, but special law pro-
vides that no woman can be required
to serve if she asks to be excused.
In Utah, women are exempted from
jury service by special statute.
In Arizona, Alaska, Colorado, and
Montana, the world male" has never
been stricken out of the qualifica-
tons for jurors.
In Kansas, women serve on juries,
and they defeated bill designed to
exempt them. A woman may be ex-
cused, however. by giving notice that
she wishes to be.
In California, Illinois and Oregon.
1t was at first taken for granted after
the granting of womans suffrage that
women would become eligible for
jury duty, and women actually served
on juries, and did well; but the legal
authorities later decided that women
were not eligible. In the last Cali
fornia legislature, the women's clubs
tried to secure law making women
eligible, but it did not pass. Judge
Lindsey has tried to secure like law
in Colorado, but without success. II
is interesting to observe that there is
always strong objection to women
jurors on the part of evil doors and
all who aid and abet them.
In Wyoming, soon after the grant
ing of equal suffrage, Chef Justice
Howe summoned women to serve on
juries, and they did much to check
the lawlessness that prevailed in the
early territorial days. 1t has been
found almost impossible to get juries
to convict of homicide in shooting af-
trays, or to bring gamblers and otEer
disorderly characters to book. The
women jurors dealt out the full penal
ty of the law. Brothel-keepers often
fOrieite their bail and fed, rather
than stand trial before a jury of
mothers. The legal right of women
to serve on juries was doubtful and
there was constant protest against
their service, from evil-doers and
their lawyers One of these threaten
ed to appeal the matter to the SUI
preme Court. Justice Howe reminded
this man that he was himself on the
Supreme Court, and that a majority
of its members shared his views. The
proposed appeal was not taken. After
Chef Justice Howe's retirement, the
practice of summoning women as
jurors was discontinued. The present
Attorney General of Wyoming holds
that they are not legally eligible; but
the question has never been formal
ly decided by the State Supreme
Court. A male prisoner in Wyoming
once demanded women Jurors; but
the court decreed that the question
could only be decided in case wom~
an demanded trial by her peers.
In Nevada, women are eligible, but
no women have yet been drawn.
Women ought to be eligible to jury
service, with proper provision for
their being excused when there is
cause; but, as a matter of fact, In
most of the suffrage States they are
not only not required to serve as jur-
ors, but are not allowed to do so. A.
s. b., Womans Journal.