GRAND JURIES
[To' the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
SIR,—May I be permitted to offer some remarks upon the recent decision by Parliament to preserve Grand Juries at Quarter Sessions ? The subject is one upon which I have expressed my views on two occasions (1910 and 1921) to the then Home Secretary. 1 have been able to produce facts which show that a miscarriage of justice may occur as the direct outcome of the system, and upon this I wrote with the full permission of the Chairman of Quarter Sessions, who, in his letter to me said :- " In the case you mention to which I referred when addressing the Grand Jury mentioning that the man was insane, there was a miscarriage of justice. It never occurred to me, the evidence
for the prosecution being absolutely clear, that the Grand Jury
would hesitate. for a monient-to find a True Bill. and no one was more astonished than I was when they came into Court with ' No Bill." This had reference to a case in which I gave expert evidence and I placed a precis of my examination by the Grand Jury before the Chairman, when asking his per- mission to place the facts before the Home Secretary in a plea for the abolition of Grand Juries.
I, Sir, fan give the facts to you and to anyone, interested to know them. But there is a more cogent argument for such abolition, and one which I have not yet heard used, viz., that it is grossly unfair to an innocent person who happens to have been committed to the Sessions that, while the hearing before the Magistrates receives full publicity in all its details in the local Press, a similar detailed publicity should be denied him when his innocence is .proved, instead of the " in camera " proceedings before the Grand Jury with the mere words " No Bill " as the only " public vindication of his innocence, My contention is that such an one should be allowed the opportunity of an open trial to proclaim his innocence, with a published account of the evidence and findings upon which it is based.
The suggestion that a Grand Jury' may save the time of the
Court is problematical and in this connexion the Chairman of Quarter Sessions' to whom I have referred above, wrote, " Let me say that there is no saving of time to the Court in having a Grand Jury." At a Quarter Sessions lately the Grand Jury retired, and after some delay the foreman returned into the Court to ask If they might call witnesses 1 To my mind the accused person has ample protection against a wrong conviction and I am convinced that a Grand Jury with the limited time at its disposal to devote to each 'case cannot possibly appraise values with such accuracy as to outweigh the original findings of the magistrates who have devoted considerable time to a thorough investigation in all its bearings, and who have arrived at the 'conclusion that' it was a proper case to send for further hearing to the higher 'Court of either Assizes or Quarter Sessions. If the argument is valid that a Grand Jury acts as an intermediary for the protection of an innocent man who may have been wrongly yet publicly com- mitted for trial, surely the same argument should insist that such trial should be as public as the first and not, as now, practically in secret before a Grand Jury.—I am, Sir, &c., [The time spent by Grand Jurors often seem; to be wasted, while they only save the time of the Court when " No Bill " is found. But our objection to their abolition is that the hearing of his case by the Grand Jury gives a prisoner one More chance, besides his appearance at Petty Sessions, of avoiding the dock in Court, and a review of his ease by laymen of general -experience before trial by the expert lawyers. So long as many lawyers agree with us, we should regret the proposed abolition.—En. Spectator.]
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