The coastland times., 1957-05-31
DARE'S OUTMODED METHODS
OF DRAWING JURIES JOLTED
BY IRE OF JUDGE PARKER
Case in Which Jury Discarded Evidence Results
IN Discharge Of All Jurors Except Grand Jury:
New Venire Drawn Monday For Further Trials.
Purge Of Jury Box Ordered; Old Methods
Costly to Taxpayers.

Monday when Judge Joseph Park
er scorched a jury which brought
in a verdict of not guilty in dis
regard of uncontradicted evidence.
The Judge then discharged the
panel and all remaining jurors
save those serving on the Grand
Jury, and had 40 new names
drawn from the box for urgent
'summoning on Monday evening.
The case which started the
trouble involved charge of pos
session Of liquor for purpose of
sale in which Willis Wilson, a
taxi-driver in Manteo was the de-
fendant, and which had resulted
in a mistrial last year. The de-
fendant had not taken the stand,
and had offered no evidence in
contradiction of the testimony of
undereover officers and others
who brought about the arrest Of
Wilson.
Because of the lax method of
drawing jurors in Dare County
there has been much needless ex-
pense upon the taxpayers for seve-
raj years. 1t is well known that no
real purging of~the jury lists have
been made in several years. The
list of taxpayers thrown in the
box before names are drawn, is
loaded with many people who
could not be expected to serve
after being summoned.
The lists are usually loaded with
sick and crippled, deaf people,
aged people, people removed, peo-
pie in the military service, numer-
Gus people exempt by law by rea-
son of occupation, and persons in
corr~atent
Term after term, large per-
centage of those drawn, do not
appear in court, or are excused
at the outset, leaving only a bare
handful of the venire remaining,
when the 18 names have been
taken out for Grand Jury duty.
In this weeks instance, eight
out of the 40 drawn, either did not
come to court, or were eliminated
by excuses. This loss of 90 per
cent left only 80 persons to serve,
and the grand jury took out 18,
with a net remainder of IA re-
manning. This left only two more
than IL needed in the jury box
for the trial of a single case.
Therefore it often takes a half
day or longer to complete single
panel.
Now the average person cannot
see the implications in these sit
uations. But there are many seri-
Gus results that may obtain, when
there aren't cough regular jurors
to fill second box. 1t is then left
up to the sheriff or court officer,
to cast his eye about the court
room, and then call enough per-
sons in the box, with often an en-
tire jury being composed of tails
men.
In picking up a jury out of the
courtroom, it becomes a likelihood
that the first rows contain many
persons who should not be on a
jury, some of them can be planted
there by persons in litigation be-
fore the court, and this situation
seems to be borne out by the
great sumber of mistrials, and
verdicts out of keeping with the
evidence. 1t has given rise to
needless complaints and criticisms
of courts, and dissatisfaction of
the public.
Over period of years, the Gu
mulative result has been crowd
ed docket of untried cases, which
at enc time had grown SO big it
was imperative to establish a
third term of court as regular
feature, which might run into sew
eral thousand dollars a year in
needless expenses to the taxpay-
ers.N
Had the courts been able to
function rapidly and efficiently by
reason of adequate numbers of
competent jurors, this trouble and
cost might have been avoided.
Time after time this newspaper
has called attention to the fact
that the jury box was not properly
cleaned out. There may be rea-
sons that underlie this grave sit
uation that are not understood by
\ the public. For one thing, there
was period of several years
} when certain county officials, q
N longtime in office, tried in every
manner to defeat the popular
clamor for county audit. It was
finally made, and found some OF
these same officials short hum
dreds of dollars. By seeing to it
that the right jurors were chosen,
and with right ones COTTON on the
grand jury, reports were phenag-
led around which either ommitted
any reference to an audit, or spoke
highly of the accurate records of
ali officers, even though the grand
Jury had no knowledge whereby
See JURY, Page Four