Our Jury System.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLV, Issue 21, 23 November 1910, Page 9

Our Jury System.

‘"Give me a common jury, a pretty widow as plaintiff, ami a railway company as defendant, and 1 will tell you ■what the verdict will 'be without any regard to the evidence!” This dictum of a very eminent English K.C. (nott a judge) was quoted the other Hay at Bristol, when in October, the Land Society met at that ancient city, and a Mr. Tudor Rees read a paper on our jury system. He advocated the raising of the rating qualifications of common jurors. The decisions of common juries often caused dissatisfaction to the parties and denied them justice. Touched by the remunerated emotion of an experienced sounsel, won by the counterfeit contrition of a prisoner, or prejudiced by his facial faults, a dozen common jurors —-with no special jurymen to restrain or reason with them—gave teardrop verdicts or unearned damagis, or reached a conclusion by the rough-and-ready argument, “Is the prisoner guilty or not guilty? Of course, he is guilty. If not guilty, what is he doing in the dock?” Indeed, one learned judge had put it on record as his opinion that “if you have a good case, you are safe with a judge; if you have a bad one, you always have a chance with a common jury.” How. then, was the eure to be effected? By so altering the law that it shall be the duty of tl>e summoning officers to call common and special jurors in like numbers, and constitute a jury from among them in fixed an! defined proportions. With their larger and wider experience of men and things, with their better education faculties, special jurors were less likely than common jurymen to be the victims of prejudice and passion, and tlieir tempering guiding influence would be found in the verdict of the twelve.