SPORT FOR THE LAWYERS.

Observer, Volume XXIV, Issue 29, 26 March 1904, Page 2

SPORT FOR THE LAWYERS.

How Juries

Are "Worked."

LAW practice is not all dryas-dust pleading of musty precedents or poring over fusty documents. The profession has its own peculiar forms of amusement. One of these, for instance, is the baiting of witnesses under examination. To the clever barrister this is a perennial source of entertainment. Another, and the one that concerns us chiefly for the moment, is the making of juries. This practice has with some members of the profession been reduced to a fine art. It is a matter of notoriety that there are lawyers in the colony who openly proclaim that in criminal cases they can so "rig" the jury in the interests of the accused as to make it impossible to obtain a conviction. And the boast is not altogether an empty one. Every now and then the colony is shacked at the patent miscarriage of justice in some ca3e where, in spite of the clearest evidence, a jury refuses to convict a criminal case. It has even happened that in a second and a third trial the same thing has happened, and an offender has gone scot free. The public have sniffed with contempt at the system that can produce such a result. But the fault is not with the principle of trial by jury. It is rather with the machinery by which the system is worked. Conscientious jurors whisper interesting tales ot the jury room about the way in which they have been prevented from giving a verdict according to the evidence. In brief, the jury has been so rigged that there could not be an honest decision. One or two men have been empannelled who have gone into the box with a predetermination not to convict, however definite the proof might be.

Here, for instance, is a typical story told by a Wellington man the other day :— " I was foreman on one occasion in which a jury disagreed, through two men holding out. Ten of us were unanimous ten minutes after we entered the jury-room ; two others stood out and would listen to no reason. They simply said they would not argue. About 1 p.m. we were called before His Honor (Judge Edwards), when I was asked if we had agreed. Of course we had not. His Honor pointed out how simple a case it was (and so it was), and gave us another four hours for further reflection. How I and a few others got through that time I cannot remember without feeling a bit of£ The two men got into a corner and smoked (I had run out of smokes early), and would not budge an inch. When approached by me and others they simply blew clouds of smoke and shook their heads. After that experience, and until I am convinced otherwise, I say that some juries are • faked,' and those so faked receive more than six shillings a day for their work of stubborn idleness."

The process is simple enough to the lawyer who will descend to such practices. He can get a copy of the jury panel days before the time fixed for the trial. It is comparatively easy for the friends of the accused to "feel" several of those who are to be summoned as to their views of the case. Some may have a bias already, from strong friendship for the accused ; others, so miscellaneous is the crowd liable to jury service, can be "got at." All that is necessary is to have one man, or two, on the list with mind made up as to the result, and get them empannelled. Then the jury can be relied upon to disagree. This may be very distressing to those who worship the jury Bystem as a fetish, but facts crop up now and then that prove the practice to exist.

Judges have from time to time shown their annoyance at the patent failure of justice in such cases. The Chief Justice spoke very strongly on the subject quite recently. But there is an easy remedy. The whole trouble arises from the necessity for getting a unanimous verdict from the dozen jurymen. In civil cases this is not insisted upon, for after the lapse of a certain period the judge can take the verdict of three-fourths. Why should not a similar rule apply to criminal trials ? For no apparent reason except

that unanimity hasal ways been the practice. Still, we do not insist that the judges most he unanimous when the full bench considers a knotty point, however weighty the issues. A bare majority then decides. Let the rale that governs civil suits obtain in criminal trials, and we shall hear less About scandal in our Court procedure.