THE JURY SYSTEM. T HE House of Lords on Monday debated
a Bill for certain improvements in the jury system. It is proposed to do away with the distinction in the treatment of jurors in cases of felony and misdemeanour. That a good case can be made out for the measure we readily admit. There are plenty of grave offences which are only misdemeanours, and of petty offences which are felonies, and therefore it cannot be argued that to maintain the distinction is to provide for a stricter treatment of the jury in all important cases. Again, the practical diffi- culties in the present arrangement are very great. If the case is technically one of felony, the jury cannot separate until they have given their verdict, and hence, if the trial is likely to be a long one, it is most diffi- cult to charge a prisoner with felony. Lord Russell of Killowen pointed out that cases have occurred in which, had it been necessary to arraign the prisoner on the charge of felony, it would have been impossible to try him satisfactorily. The Tichborne case was an illustration. "Fortunately the ends of justice were achieved by indict- ing the prisoner for misdemeanour, under which he got a very considerable sentence of imprisonment. But had it been necessary to make the experiment of indicting him for the felony of forging the Tichborne bonds, the ex- periment must have broken down ; for it would have been impossible to keep a jury secluded from their business and homes for fifty days." These being the facts, we cannot doubt that there is need for reform. At the same time, we agree with the Lord Chancellor that the utmost care and forethought is needed in touching the jury system. He put an objection which will be realised as a very grave one by all who have given the matter their consideration. He pointed out the dangers to the due execution of justice that might arise in the case of a rich man on trial for his life. " It might be worth everything to such a person to procure disagreement among the jury ; and he might cause the jury to be shadowed in some way or other, in order that by the expenditure of a large sum of money he might bring about such a disagreement." That the possibility of such a temptation ought not be presented is a declaration of principle to which there will be uni- versal assent. Whether this objection can be got over by giving the Judge a discretionary power, or whether it would be better to exempt murder and treason, is clearly a matter for the most anxious consideration. It will be argued, no doubt, that the discretion already possessed by the Judge in cases of misdemeanour works well ; but cannot this be met by the undoubted fact that when a man's life is at stake the efforts to tamper with the jury will be enormously increased? These considerations, however, we are quite content to leave to the legal Members of the House of Lords. They know the dangers, and are not likely to come to a rash decision.
What chiefly interests us in the matter is the fact that our whole jury system stands in need of reform, because of the inconvenience it causes to the public, and yet that that system is so terribly liable to abuses of the gravest kinds that it is exceedingly dangerous to touch it. We know that our present system works well, and also that it does so by a sort of miracle. Naturally, then, one is doubtful as to proposed reforms. Some apparently reasonable change may upset the whole balance of this mysterious machine and give us a system which will prevent the carrying out of justice, in the worst possible way,— i.e., by the destruction of the impartiality and independence of the twelve men to whom we trust matters of the most vital importance. Consider what the present jury system is, and the dangers which surround the feet of Justice as she picks her way among its snares and pitfalls. Almost the worst thing that can happen to a country is to have its Courts of Justice discredited and demoralised. There is an end to true freedom if once the powerful man or the rich man can say in his heart, I do not fear the law, for if it comes to the worst, and I am prosecuted for any wrongful act, I can secure an acquittal in spite of all the Acts of Parliament and all the Judges in the land.' The poor and the weak and the humble are in danger of a worse oppression than if they lived under the harshest despotism. Parliaments and representative assemblies, votes and democratic institutions, are of little good if the rich man feels he need not fear the law. But if you have a defective jury system the rich man has very little cause to fear the law. He has only to get some clever and unscrupulous agent to " fix " the jury, and he is sure to escape. Think what an opportunity the English jury system gives to a rich man who is pre• pared to bribe. To bring a criminal to justice you 111l181 get twelve men to agree that the evidence justifiet, them in saying he committed the crime. Hence the " jury-fixer" employed by the rich man has not to bribe the juryman to give a direct verdict of acquittal. He has merely to ask him not to agree with his fellow-juryman. It is easy to imagine the specious pleas that can be put forward to induce a man to do this. There are thousands of men who would utterly refuse to take a bribe to give a, verdict of "guilty" who can be half-cajoled, half-bribed, and half-intimidated into letting the poor fellow have another chance. We shall be told that we are taking too low a view of human nature. Not necessarily. There are many weak men who are not really bad men, and these weak men fall an easy prey to the "jury-fixer." Remember, too, how many ways the " jury-fixer," if you give him a little time, has of getting at a juryman. There are very few small tradesmen on whom some one or other has not got what the Americans call " a pull,"—it may be because of some past favour, or because of a mortgage, or again because of something unpleasant and disgraceful in the past. The " jury-fixer " thus often finds it very useful to work through the man who has the " pull," and to use his influence. Suppose the man with the " pull " is a local publican, and that the " jury-fixer " bets him "200 to 1 in sovereigns" that the prisoner will not get off. If that evening the juryman come s home and has his usual glass it is not unlikely that the publican will try to show him that the manly thing is to "stand up to the rest of them" i and give the poor fellow the benefit of the doubt. But it is not necessary to labour the point. The fact is clear that the jury system is liable to great abuse in the matter of bribery, and also of intimidation. That must always be the case when you run the risk of subjecting poor men to very great pecuniary temptations.
Yet in practice there is at present little or no "jury- fixing." No doubt occasionally a juryman may be got at, and no one be any the wiser, but on the whole our jury- men may be pronounced to be free from corruption. They are often stupid, still oftener prejudiced and sentimental, but almost never influenced in their verdicts by unworthy motives. To what is this happy result due? How comes it that the dangers so obvious in theory are not met with in practice? We believe it to be due to two things. In the first place, juries are chosen quite haphazard, and thus it is impossible to know who is, and who is not, going to be on a jury. This fact causes endless worry and trouble to the unfortunate jurymen, but it does prevent attempts to tamper with the jury, Next, in murder cases—which are the cases where the pressure is greatest—the juries do not separate till the verdict is pronounced, and there- fore the " jury-fixer" could not, if he would, get at the jury. When be knows who the jury are, it is too late for him to make overtures to a juryman likely to be induced to disagree. There seem very slight safeguards between us and a corrupt jury system, but since they have done their work we cannot afford to despise them. The first of them, the haphazard calling of juries, is, as we have said, a terrible source of inconvenience to the public; but unless and until some one is able to devise a system of summoning jurymen which will not make it possible to say beforehand what men, or set of men, will try a particular set of cases, we fear it must be maintained. There is, however, one reform which we would make. We would allow any man to buy a year's exemption from jury service by the payment of £50, not as a fine, but as a special tax. In regard to the seclusion of the juries, we would, as at present advised, agree to Lord Coleridge's Bill, subject to Lord Hale b u ry 's exceptions. We would, that is, assimilate the procedure in cases of felony and misdemeanour, except in the case of murder and treason. In such cases we would keep the jury secluded till their verdict and allow the Judge no dis- cretion,—not, of course, because we distrust the good sense of the Judges, but because it is not fair in such serious matters to burden the Judges with yet more responsibility. In cases of life and death every new matter thrown upon the discretion of the Judge is a most serious burden. In regard to the whole matter, our last word to the British public must be : " You have got a preposterous system of criminal justice, which somehow or other works extremely well. Be sure before you make alterations in it that you will not affect the balance and cause the whole structure to collapse."
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