JURY TO VOTE ON PENALTY

Hawera Star, Volume LI, 11 June 1932, Page 11

JURY TO VOTE ON PENALTY

public learned with some surprise that among 'some forty Bills] I passed by the French Chamber one morning without discussion was one making a fundamental change in the procedure at criminal trials in prance, says the Paris correspondent of the “Manchester 'Guardian.” As this Bill was passed by the Senate in 1926 it will nopr becojne law. The Bill transfers the right to pronounce sentence on convicted persons in the Assize Courts from the Judges to the three Judges and the jury sitting together, who will decidg fey & bare piajprity jp a .secret ballot.. The twelve jurymen will vote first in an order decided by drawing lots, then the two assessors, and lastly the presiding Judge. If after two' ballots have been taken there is not a clear majority for any punishment, there will be a third ballot, in which the most severe punishment proposed in the previous ballof will b e excluded. •This operation will be repeated as many times as may be necessary until a clear majority is obtained for some sentence, thp most severe punishment previously proposed feeing excluded each time. The reason given for the adoption of this strange system is jthat juries at

New System in French Courts

, present often acquit guilty persons because they fear that the sentence inflicted by the Court may be too severs. It is to be feared, however, that the practice of acquitting self-confessed murderers in cases of so-called crimes of P?§§i<ffi, Wjiiph is a gVpwjqg §gandal, is unlikely to be affected. The jury can already prevent the infliction of tfcp capital sentence by finding extenuating circumstances but they acquit nevertheless. On the other hand, French ju!;es. especially in rural departments, are often much too severe in cases of crimes against property, especially agricultural property. A jury of peasants are ruthless when their interests are affiected, as was discovered a few years ago by a gentleman wfe.o gfter murdpriiig his mistress burned down a haystack to get rid’ of her corpse. He was convicted and sentenced to death, not for the murder but for the haystack. The new system is likely tq inqreg.se the injustices ip the Fr'encji administration of justice, fpr inexperience has shown that French juries are top often guided entirely by sentiment selfV interest without regard to the .facts of the case, and are lacking in a sense of justice and public duty.