SUPREME COURT

Colonist, Volume XVI, Issue 1661, 19 August 1873, Page 3

SUPREME COURT

. miftfa mitat,'ISM ~ [Before his Honor Mi>. JtrsTidE RlCHMOib.] The session opened yesterday at the Provincial kali. Twenty-four Grand Jurors having been called and sworn, his Hdffbß addressed them as follows: — Me. Fobeman, JJtb Gentlemen or the Gband Jubx, — For the second time since this judical district was consigned to me, in 1867, we have the pleasing experience of a blank calender. The only business of the Court of which I am at present aware, is to pass sentence on a prisoner whose case I reserved at the last Circuit Court for the opinion of the Court of Appeal. Unless therefore any private person should come forward as anyone may, to prefer an indictment, or you should yourselves desire to make any presentment, there will be no business for you to transact. I take the opportunity to observe that your attendance here to-day is no unmeaning ceremony, though I shall probably have to tell you almost immediately, that you are discharged. You actually represent here an institution of very considerable importance. Ido not hereby mean to assert that some efficient substitute might not be found for the Grand Jury, as now constituted, which would be, on the whole, better suited to the social circumstances of a Colony. It is a question of some difficulty; and though I believe I have been supposed to be an advocate ' for the abolition of the Grand Jury, I certainly never meant to go that length. All I wish now to point out is, that the function ia the State conveyed to you is of more importance than people imagine. It is by no means your sole office to oheck the action of magistrates in committing for trial. Equally important in a constitutional point of view, is the power, just adverted to by me, of allowing private individuals to initiate prosecutions which : a magistrate may have refused to authorise, and the power of disallowing private prosecutions. The latter power, you will remember, was exercised in England not long since, in the case of the attempted proceedings against Governor Eyre. The Grand Jurors possess, moreover, the right of presenting crimes and misdemeanors of their own knowledge. The magistracy, more especially stipendiary magistrates, are more or less under the control of the Executive Governments. A corrupt or tyrannical administration might, through this influence, endeavor either to screen offenders or to harass and oppress the innocent. The powers of the Grcnd Jury stand greatly in the way of any such, attempt. Now, in quiet times, such as we happen to be living in, whilst all the joints of state are working smoothly, these powers may appear of little or no practical importance But a wellordered State, like a well-found ship, is fitted io meet all sorts of weather; and is provided, so to speak, with sails and gear that never come into use until it blows hard. These powers of the Grand Jury over the initiation of criminal prosecutions may, in not impossible circumstances, become of great moment, What is called by engineers " the lock-up safetyvalve" on a locomotive, may never rise in its bed from year's end to year's end under steam pressure ; yet at a critical moment it may open suddenly to avert a catastrophe. But silly people, and there are a great many in the world, are apt to think that reserved force is ineffective. Silent influences they are ever ready to treat as non-existant. In the British constitution there are many powers seldom or never exercised; yet their existence is all important. Take, for example, the Royal power of overruling a majority in the House of Lords by the creation of new Peers —a power, the mere existence of which without its exercise, is said to have been so influential at the time of the Reform Bill. So with this institution of the Grand Jury, it is one of the reserved powers of the constitution ; and effective even more to prevent wrong than to redress it. In the absence of such a safeguard, the bitterness, or more probably the corruption of political party, might be found ready to attempt things which are not now tried because there is no hope of their success. Such, gentlemen, briefly are my reasons for saying that your presence here today must not be treated by yourselves or others as a vain ceremony, and a profitless consumption of your time. And if ever it should be determined to abolish Grand Juries, it will have to be carefully considered what institution shall be substituted. It will never do on. the one hand to abandon to the Executive Government, or their nominees, the entire control over criminal prosecutions; nor, on the other hand, would it be tolerable that private prosecutors should be free, without oheok of any kind, to put any man upon his trial for whatever offence they might choQse to accuse him of. • The Sheriff then presented the white kid gloves usually offered on such occasions; and his Honor received them with some pleasant reference to their ball-room use. The petty jurors were then called by the Registrar, and in every case, except where they had quitted the Colony, answered to their names. His Honob said perhaps the petty jury might think, that with no business to dispose of, their attendance might have been dispensed with, but such a course on his part would have been improper and unconstitutional, and no judge could possibly tell before the actual sitting of the Court whether there might not be business for the petty jurors to do. His experience here was that juries were extremely attentive to their duties. The Petty Jury was then discharged.

Mary Ann Woodman was brought up for sentence. His Honob told the prisoner that her case had given him some anxiety. If he could give credit to depositions in the case—not to evidence given in Courtbut to the depositions of the unfortunate woman who had loßt her life by the prisoner's act, she might have been charged, with the highest chance of conviction, with murder. He referred to her having said that she had served nine months for a previous assault on another person, and was willing to suffer again. These proved prisoner to be a woman of the most' unrestrained passions. Her first sentence was utterly inadequate to her offence. It ought never to have gone to the District Court, but she should hare been sent here at once. He must mark his sense of the extreme gravity of the prisoner's offence, and would tell her, if ever for any act of violence or injury to her fellow-creatures she should come before that Court again,'she would be visited with extreme severity. As, however, she had been put to the pain and anxiety of undergoing two trials he would pronounce a short sentence, The sentence of the Court was that she be kept to hard labor for a term of three years in all. On the application of Mr, H. Adams, the sureties in the ease of Mr. John Palmer were released, the case having been quashed by the Appeal Court. The Court then adjourned until this day week.