LADIES OF THE JURY.

White Ribbon, Volume 32, Issue 379, 18 February 1927, Page 8

LADIES OF THE JURY.

(“Literary Digest,” March 6th.) When women jurors were a novelty, the favourite word of caution to them was, ‘Don’t let your feelings run aw T ay with you!’ Well, they didn’t, it seems, and now the favourite word of caution to them is, ‘Have a heart!* We read of malefactors taking one glance at the female faces in the jury box and hastily withdrawing a jaunty plea o( “not guilty” and substituting one of “guilty.” Writing on this subject in Colliers, the National Weekly, Hugh O’Connor declares that women have changed the method of trying prisoners more than it bad been changed by men in seven centuries. On which point— Judges who have had experience with women on the jury all seem to agree: what women have done to the jury system during the past two or three years is the most remarkable thing that has happened to it sincr a historic date in 1219. when one of the Popes forbade any further use of trial by tire or water in Christian countries. PLEASING THE JUDGES. Mr O’Connor tells us that the entry of women into the court as jurors was regarded with suspicion by the judges at hrst. “as they now frankly admit;” but most of them have undergone a chance of heart. Then follows testimony from Court Judges in Kansas, North Dakota. California, Ohio. Indiana, etc. —of 62 opinions from State Judges, 58 were enthusiastically for women jurors and only 4 gave faint praise. “Justice Guy, in New York, was moved recently to declare that m n are really more emotional th. n women. And on the court records throughout the country, from time to time judges have spread blasts of dissatisfaction with men juries for being swayed by sympathy. The judges said the men juries too often went beyond the question: Is the prisoner guilty? and decided the question: Should the prisoner he punished for it?