JUDGE AND JURY.

Marlborough Express, Volume XXXIX, Issue 59, 10 March 1906, Page 4

JUDGE AND JURY.

■ Very eminent legal authorities agree that as to the facts of a case the jury are more likely to be right than the Judge. Quito recently, however, there was another addition to the lengthy list of instances of the Judge censuring a-jury upon their finding. "As clear a case as had ever come before him," he said, as he ordered them to go home. Possibly the Judge was right. It is well to remember, however, that all the cases which have appeared so clear to the Judges gone as their lordships desired, more than a few innocent men would have been sent to the gallows. An instance conies to mind, one of the most extraordinary in history, the account of which we owe to the liian who tried and presided over the trial, Lord Chief Justice Dyer. This was a " clear case "of murder. The victim had been found stabbed to death inj a field wood, by his side the pitchfork with which the deed had been done. The man who owned the fork was arrestefl, and the bloodstained suit he had worn was found hidden in a mattress. Short of testimony from anyone who had seen" the crime actually committed, there was not a link missing from the chain of evidence against the prisoner. It was in vain he pleaded not guilty; everything was so conclusively clear againsfe him. Aver-, diet of guilty was expected immediately from the jury, but the^ foreman asked that as the life of a feHow-creature was at stake they might be,allo\ved,.to retire. The Judge did not understand Svhy they should do so in so simple a case; still, they had their wishis They jlid not return. The Court adjourned'for lunch;? they did not come back in the' afternoon, and, in spite of several anxious inquiries^ from the Bench, tjhey had not made up. their minds when the Court rose for. the. day—there' was %ne man , holding" outy They were locked ..up.for the night, aincl in the morning were brought into. ..the court to return a "verdict of not: guilty! This was a poser, and the Judge dismissed them, saying!* " The blood of the deceased lies at your,,,door." Private inquiry by the Judge elicited the fact that .the foreman, a man of unblemished reputation and of considerable estate, hSd been the cause of fhe verdict, whichi<the rest had been stai4ed into accepting. r The Judge sent foujthis gentlenian. ,'and in his private j^om 'begged him to-explain the mystery o.fihis obd.urif.cy and the"' amazing of his fellows,1 first.-..pledging himself ib preserve inviolate ,any confidence which the^other, might 'repose in him*. Then the foreman, told him how he himself had met the.- victim for whose ljaurder the prisoner--had been tried, liow ,this man had . spugh't to take advantage .„,of his ,iofficial'/ position and exact/tiiijust ft'thes,;;liow, they had quarrelled, and fought, how the |man had attempted t& lull him with a fork, and how hej (the foreman b£,the jury) had killed his antagonist with''~his own pitchfork, then fled. '*The 5 " prisoner, coming along, had fouiicl thd Sman dying, and in endeavouring tofcjsuecbr him had got blood upon his clothesvand in his confusion had taken the dead, man's fork and left his own in its place. That was why the foreman had hel'd^ut, and why the prisoner escaped. ,s,.■