Professional Jurymen.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLV, Issue 17, 26 October 1910, Page 51

Professional Jurymen.

A suggestion has recently been put forward that a body of trained professional jurymen, equipped in point of intelligence and education to cope with difficult problems of fact, would come as a boon and blessing to the community. The idea is an attractive one; but there are obvious difficulties in the way. First and foremost, unanimity would be well-nigh impossible of attainment if the twelve men in the jury-box were close and accurate thinkers; and. secondly, the professional jurymen, whose names an I addresses would either be known or readily discoverable, would be more approachable than the mass of individuals from whom jurymen are now drawn. When the twelve good men of to-day are not able to agree upon their verdict, they are discharged, with no worse penalty than a sarcastic address from the learned judge. Formerly it was otherwise. A refractory juryman was committed to prison, and the verdict of the eleven was taken. But in the reign of King Edward 111. the judges decided that a verdiet given by a majority was a nullity, and recommended that the judges of assize should carry the jury about with them in a cart till they should agree. The rule that jurors should go unrefreshed till a verdict was given dates from the remote past; but -in Tudor times it was relaxed to the extent that if a juror became faint for want of food he might, by the assent of the justices, “have meat and drink, and also such other things as may be necessary for him; and his fellows also, nt thijir own costs, or at the indifferent costs of the parties, if they so agree, or by the assent of the justices, may both eat and drink.” Thus the spectacle, maddening to the starving eleven, of a twelfth jure lunching in comfort, was avoided.