THE MAN IN THE DOCK

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6944, 25 June 1929, Page 3

THE MAN IN THE DOCK

Relic of Barbarism

It is a. curious thing in a Court, of Justice to-day to see everybody seated at case except the one mail or woman most in need of comfort. lam inclined to think that the dock is a relic of barbarism, and the law should grant, to a prisoner the same degree of comfort that it offers to his jurors. \\V no longer style an unconvie-ti.-il man a “culprit” us our grandfathers did, but we treat him as one, which is just as unfair. To understand why this is so we must study the lit-up and scenery of ancient Courts of Justice. In the earliest courts, of which wc have piclures only, the judges, and sometimes their clerk, had stools lo sit on. The judge, who represented the king, took a se-at, if there was one, and, as it is not etiquette in courts for any to sit uninvited in the King’s presence, and as there was a scarcity of stools to sii. on, everyone else stood around.

Even in the civilised days of Elizabeth ami late into the seventeenth century, a judge of assize sat in .some great hall “in a tribunal or place of judgment made aloft on the highest bench.” The justices of the peace hud lower benches and the clerk of ['Mice and the undcr-skeriil sat at a tabic beneath, where the sergeant also sat. ' This table was within the bar, which was a transom placed beyond it. There was then no dock and no jury box, and everyone but these few privileged people stood during the whole proceedings. Behind the bar the jury stood, and behind the jury was a further bar, “and there stand the prisoners, which will be brought by the jailer, all chained one to another.” At a later dale thte prisoner is placed on a raised platform. This had railings put round it, and was called a pew, but it gradually enlarged into the dock as we now know it,. At the Old Bailey there was a room in the corner of the court called the bail-dock. This was a kind of reservoir for prisoners, kept ready to be brought, to the bar, and when the pew at the bar was made large enough the bail-dock was no longer needed, and the bar was called the duck. But the prisoner stands at the railings of the dock to-day because in the eye of the law he is slill standing at the bar. There he must stand for all time unless Parliament' or the judges decree that ho shall be treated like oilier unconvicted citizens. When Captain Douglas in IS-10 was

tried for taking part in a duel, Thesiger, his counsel, applied to Mr Justice Williams, that ho might be seated near him in (lie custody of tlie sheriff. But t'lic judge rightly decided that he could not make any distinctions between one person and another. So lie had to stand in the dock, but at his request three personal friends were allowed to stand with him for company during the trial. Mary Queen of Scots at her trial had a chair placed within the bar for her accommodation, but that’ has never been made a precedent for the convenience of common citizens. Horne Tooko, in 1704, when tried for treason, put up a strong argument as to the inconvenience of the dock as a place from which an innocent man can adequately instruct Iris counsel. But all the judges were stern for the law. lie, however, had mentioned illhealth, and Lord Chief Justice Eyre said that if his plea was on that ground it .might be listened to. Tookc wisely expressed his readiness to accept a seat near his counsel as an indulgence “very acceptable and necessary for his health,” and the judges after consultation permitted him to do so. When the jury were allowed to leavo the bar and sit in a jury box at the side of the court. Ido not know. It was some time in the eighteenth century, and probably the practice arose in civil courts and was adopted later in criminal courts. To-day when a judge enters everyone stands to greet him, and when he has bowed to them and taken his seat they take their seats, not perhaps as cf legal right, but by courtesy of long standing, if one may put it so. AVhcther a modern Jefferies could compel a jury lu stand during a trial is, I think, very doubtful. 4

But the prisoner’s prohibition of sitting is clearly law to-day. Mr Maurice Healy at Derby Assizes recently argued in favour of the right of a prisoner to be seated when the rest of the public took their scats, lie contended, with very much show of reason,, that the courtesy extended by the judge to the citizens in court, where he was the representative of the Crown, ought to be extended to all alike, and therefore to include the man in the dock. Mr Justice Horridge ruled that “uuk’Ss there was some special reason prisoners should stand.” This, I think is sound law. But is not the question really one of good manners'? And why should not the judges pass a resolution in favour of further and better courtesy towards the man in the dock?— Sir Edward Barry, in the ‘Morning Dost.’