Year: 1872

Mr.. Judd's bill, introduced in the AS
sembly on Monday, promises, If 1t be-
come q law, to put an end to the
familiar farce known in our Courts as
Getting Jury" Some centuries ago, when
there were neither mails, telegraphs, nor news
papers, the law required that no man should
be held competent to sit on a jury who bad
formed an opinion about the case to be tried.
News travelled slowly in those days-or some
times never travelled at all-and if murder
were committed it was easy enough to
find twelve intelligent men who had
never heard of it until they were brought
into court. But in the course of time
the machinery for disseminating intelligence
has been so much improved that every I'M
portant incident in the life of Il community is
made public at once. There was probably not
a reasonable man in the City of New-GOrk
who did not know of the killing of James
Fisk, IT,, within twenty-four hours OF the
occurrence. Perhaps not one in thousand
could help forming an opinion more or less
distinct about the nature of the decd Yet
with all the changes in the condition OF
society, the law about jurymen not only re-
mains in force but has been grossly aggra-
yated by courts and counsel. 1t is now
required IN practice, not only that the jury
man shall have no prejudice against the
accused, but that he shall never have enter
tained or expressed even an evanescent
opinion on the case; that If he has read
about it the reading shall have made no
impression upon him; that his mind, IN lac'
shall be as to this matter an absolute Dlank'


1t is hardly necessary to say that IN this
age of the world men whose minds are per
feet blank as to notorious events are gene
rally fools. Everybody of ordinary lntelll-
gence reads the newspapers and talks about
the news. IL you want to find twelve men
who have never had the faintest OPINION,
fixed or fleeting, in relation to the assassina-
ton of Fisk yOu can perhaps get them after
n fortnights waste of time, and as a result you
will have one of the most incompetent Jurles
ever impaneled. Some will be weak minded
persons, incapable of drawing deductions from
the clearest facts. Some will be men so buslly
immersed in their private affairs that they
have lost the habit of attending to any occur
renee which does not concern themselves per-
sonally. And some will be those most imprac-
ticable and provoking of all ignOramuses, men
who through pure pis-headed cOnceit and
thickness of skull discredit everything they
have not seen with their own eyes. From
such Jury neither justice nor the prisoner
has fair chance, and the verdict Is more
likely to be decided by accident than the evi-
dence.


The new bill provides that the previous
formation or expression OF an opinion" shall
not disqualify juror who is able to declare
on oath that he is able to render an impartial
verdict according to the evidence, and limits
the number of pcremptory challenges to thirty
on each side It is not to take effect, how
ever until six months after its passage, so
that it may not affect the case of Stokes. We
do not see why Stokes should be exempted
from the operation of this law any more than
other prisoners, especially as the reform Is
demanded in the interest Of the accused quite
as much as in the interest OF the people.
Besides there is likely to be more need OF 1t
i'm the Stokes case than in any other of recent
times. The difficulty of getting jury in this
trial will be enormously aggravated by the
efforts of iniudicious friends to manufacture
public sentiment in the dead mans favor We
do not suppose such efforts will infiame an
angry feeling against the prisoner; on the
contrary, they are just us likely to have the
opposite effect but they will provoke discus
sion. and so increase the trouble In finding
twelve men of blank minds to whom, accord
ing to the present absurd practice, the trial of
the case must be committed