SENDING JURIES TO SLEEP

Otago Witness, Issue 3869, 8 May 1928, Page 77

SENDING JURIES TO SLEEP

JUDGES WHO TALK FOR HOURS OVER "CHARGES.”

By

Munro Blair.

(Copyright.—-Fob the Otago Witness.) •Judges have been known to make their charge to the grand jury an occasion for airing their particular social and political opinions, and impressing the good men with their learning. But all judges must not be put in this category. Mr Justice Rigby, for instance, established a. record at the Manchester Assizes when he delivered a charge to the jury in one and a-half minutes. It will be difficult for many learned colleagues to beat it. It used to be said of Lord Coleridge that he was never heard to make a long speech, when he was a judge on circuit. Of course, it is possible in law as in other things to have too much of a good thing; and we could not wish any judge to make an attack on the record of one who won the reputation of ending causes without hearing them.. “ HEAVY-HEADED ” JUDGE. There was a judge who used to bore the grand jury with his long and prosy charges; then he would write letters and read the newspapers during the hearing of a case, and bring his mind back to business just in time for his summing up. Needless to say, that justice was blind when he went on circuit. A good story is told of another notorious time-wasting judge who dearly loved to display his general knowledge. One case in particular concerned the theft of some copper, but during a long and wandering summing-up he kept referring to the metal as lead. At last counsel summoned up the courage to correct him. I beg your pardon, gentlemen—copper,” explained his lordship. . “ But I cannot get the lead out of my head.” The laughter which followed was so lopd and long that the embarrassed judge sternly silenced the court and cut short his speech. One of the most tiresome judges that weary juries ever had to be lectured by was Lord Kenyon, who splashed his charges with Latin tags, and loved to draw out his summing-up with the language of which he really knew very little. Thus he concluded a pointless address to the jury in a blasphemy case with the words, “ Above all, need I name to you the Emperor Julian, who was so celebrated for every Christian virtue that he was called Julian the Apostle.” A TIRING CUSTOM. Although the custom for juries to stand while the judge was addressing them has long since been dead, a few sticklers for form and ceremony insisted on the practice for many years after it had ceased to be general. There could be little harm in it, had judges been as brief as Mr Justice Rigby at Manchester. Unhappily they were not. One Scottish judge would talk to the weary men for hours and would severely reprimand any one whom he discovered trying to snatch a rest. His charges easily hold the record for length, because they have, been known to continue through the afternoon and until'past midnight! In pleasant contrast was the charge of Judge Foster to a grand jury at Worcester during a record heat wave. “ Gentlemen of the jury, the weather is extremely hot,” said his lordship. “ I am very old, and you are very well acquainted with what is your duty. I have no doubt that you will practise it.” The most terrible addresses to the jury in the whole of judicial history are probably those of the notorious “Bloody” Jeffreys. Modern attempts to whitewash his character conveniently ignore these records. . JEFFREY’S ADDRESS. “ I hope——l hope, gentlemen of the jury,” he once began when summing-up, “ you will take notice of the strange and horrible carriage of the accused. Withal, you cannot but observe the spirit of this sort of people, what a villainous and devilish one it is. A Turk is a saint to such a man. Hold the lights up that the jury may see his brazen face the better.” One of the most expeditious judges of our time was Mr Justice Denman, who could take up a complicated case, and would, according to Lord Coleridge, “in about six sentences fling it at the jury.” Mr Justice Acton is a living master of brevity, and has ’almost banished the charge from his courts. At York Assizes he formally introduced the grand jury to their business Without comment. His “ charge ” took less than a minute. Not all our judges are guiltless of prolonging judicial business by their eloquence, but there has been a great change in late years. The charge of today is a model of conciseness. There are not a few men of law who feel with Judge Acton that it might be dispensed with. It belongs to days when “half the jury were ignorant men and the other half didn’t know their, business.”