Evening star., 1933-06-11


" to the jury and says, In effect,
IF you believe witness or wit
nesses So-and-so, YOU must find the defendant
guiky'-or innocent, as the case may be.
The jurors look at the witness, If he Is stil
present, recall as well as they can just what
he said and decide, for example, whether the
accused shall be eiectrocrted or hung, 60 to
Jail for years or go free.
It Is rs simple as that. and thus, IN the linal
ANALYSIS, the fate Of the accused rests not IN
the fact Of innocence guilt but In the jurors
judgment as to the credibiaity Of witnesses.
If there Is a situation more important to<ps
all the writer does not know what It Is. For
men are forever being falsely accused, and there
Is amazing evidence that many innocents are
put 10 death, serve years in penal institutions
or suffer the ignominy Of conviction and parole
year after year.
Long ago did the states of Europe recognize
this fact and pass laws providing for tndemnid-
cation Of persons wrongly imprisoned and pun
ished. And In the United States three States
Wisconsin, North Dakota and California
have similar statutes.
h lot only that, but recently Prof. Edwin M.
~ Borchard of the Law faculty at Yale COM
piled list of more than IS cases wherein
persons were falsely accused, convicted and
punished-cases taken from the courts Of every
section of the country. They were presented
not as freaks and exceptions but samples Of
regular procedure in criminal courts.
Now no minded man can object to the
principle Of indemnifying man who is found
10 be innocent after having served years at hard
labor for crime he did not commit. But how
can the dead be indemnifed?
Beyond doubt, 1t would seem that we should
go beyond this idea and do everything in our
power TO make our courts as nearly perfect as
possible. Much could be done toward the
Strengthening of our legal procedure by pro-
70 nf
in the psychology Of human beings.
We demand high education and training IN
lawyers and judges, and then, curiously enough,
put the decision up to men and women of the
jury who, picked at random from the citizenry
a rule, not only know nothing of law, but
are ignorant of the human mind rs we'll They
know nothing Of psychology-the first science
when it comes to practical study and under
standing Of humans.
How to give them this knowledge a part
Of it, sufficient for the purpose. may seem
hard, at first thought. Most folks grumble now
at the time required of them ON occasions for
jury duty and ii, in addition, they were asked to
take kind of educational course in the mat
ter there would quite probably be something of
a revolution.
Yet the whole business of making prospective
jurors better jurors IN this business OF psy-
chology need be such complicated procedure
because two or three lectures-in essence as
interesting as any detective story-should make
any intelligent human a far better juror. In
the opinion of the writer, this bold-seeming
statement can be amply justified
c INCE determining the credibility of witnessee
- is such an important part of the Jurors
task, let US consider three OF four simple things
which, being unknown to the juror, often lead
honest men to error
There is rather general belief amcng as
all-and hence among jurors-that when a
man saws II do not remember" he Is irving
.---s.t s.tI7ss.sUt