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Show I UTAH WOiW JUROR P OSS I BLEUNLI K EL Y Constitution Contains No Prohibition, but Provides Exemption From Duty. QUALIFIED TO SERVE Judges Hold Feminine Intuition Intui-tion Competent as Faulty Logic of Men. Though Utah always has had incorporated incor-porated in its constitution full cn-franchisenicnt cn-franchisenicnt for women, not within tho history of the .judiciary in this m state has a woman sat upon a .iury to Hfl try either criminal or civil cases. In Hj view of tho fact that other states whoro woman has boon enfranchised HH hut lccently are enjoying- the novelty HjB of women jurors, the reason for this Bfl state never having called upon its fom- HH iuine citizens to docide its controvcr- HH sies aud to preside iu its temple of .iiis- HH ticc is of timely interest. The reason is this: Women are ox-cmpt ox-cmpt not barred or prohibited but just exempt, the same as doctors and iawyors and newspaper mon are ex-cmpt. ex-cmpt. The state constitution in listing the causes of exemption from m ;jury service declares that a female citizen may claim exemption. The Teason for the' inclusion of that provision, placed at tlie very bottom of the list, is not easily discernible. Right, but Not Duty. But, acting upon it, every jury com-mission com-mission ever named in Utah . has been careful to select tho nam a of no wo-man wo-man for service. Consequently no woman has ever entered the. jury box, and from tho expressions gained from local members of tho judiciary, she is never likely to. Jury service is urn-vcrsallv urn-vcrsallv taken as a dutv, th"-- say. ami the women of Utah, far from being depriveil of any rights, have beeu granted the franchise, with the extra privilege of exemption from jury scrv-ice scrv-ice thrown in for good measure. However, should any woman of Utah take the stand that she was being ar-bitrarily ar-bitrarily deprived of a right by the jury commission, she could take legal action to force the selection of women on the jury fist. In doing that, how-ever, how-ever, she would immediately lay her-self her-self open to challenge in tho jurv box on the ground that she had ulterior motives for serving, according to .hid oc (.leorgo G. Armstrong of the district HH Judge Armstrong, by the way, has Rome gallant views on the question of HH the fair sex in 'the jury box. He takes II issue with Hugo Meunstenberg, the HB noted Harvard psychologist, who dc- c'arcd in a recent "article that -womau was of too stubborn a mentality for jury service. The Harvard man said that woman has a habit of arriving at conclusions across lots by a sort of iu-slincfc iu-slincfc or intuition, rather- than reason and logic. Judge Praises Intuition. "That may be true,1 said the jud'c fl llie other day, "but Fll wager that the average woman can jum closer to the right conclusion with her eyes bliml-fokled than the average man in HI tho jury box can, with much logic and devious' reasoning. Any man who has ever argued with a 'woman knows I "As .1 understand it," the judge continued, "woman- is not called to the jury box for the same reason that doctors or other men exempt from Bl service arc not. It would be folly B for the jury commission to fill its B lists with names of persons who could B claim exemption the moment they were B placed in the box. About four women Bl out of five would claim their exemp- BH tion. anyway, 1 think, and the fifth Bl would be open to suspicion for not claiming it and would succumb to the first prcemptory challenge of the con-tending con-tending lawyers. And so I do not bo-lieve bo-lieve femininity will be seen in Utah iury boxes while the present law granting the right of exemption is on the books.'' B Judge M. L. Ritchie, also of the dis- tnct court, is of much the same opiu-ion opiu-ion as Judge Armstrong. In fact, he Bj goes farther and says that philosophers have yet to prove that intuition or iu-Htincl. iu-Htincl. is not just as capable of lead-iug lead-iug the human mind to the correct, conclusion as logic and cold reasoning powers.1' "Pure Logic" a Dream. 1 "Most men jurors are more or less Bfl influenced, by the prejudices of instinct or intuition, anyway," he said. "Pure reasoning is impossible, Aran is not Hj yet able to emancipate his intellec- tualimn from certain inexplicable in- 1 flucnecs arising from the instinct. In- stinct, after all, is but the faculty for arriving at a conclusion spontaneously. withoutgoing through processes or logic. Woman excells at this facult'. She does, not always have to repeat the mental formula that two nlus two I makes four. Sho knows the answer in-stiuctivelvr" in-stiuctivelvr" Judge Frederick C. Loofbourow, who presides over the criminal division of the district court, is also against the Meunstenberg theory. He does not believe be-lieve there is any appreciable differ? once between the ability of men and women so fur as jury service is concerned, con-cerned, and it is possible, he thinks, that woman might bo superior to men in this respect because of that very intuitive faculty that the psychologist decries. E. 0. Leatherwood, district attorney, whoBe eloquence before the jnry is generally known, said he would ifke to see women in the jury box. "They have proveii their right to follow whorcver man goes in his search for tho truth," he said. "In the universities they have established their equality and in some things their superiority. I really believe that in cass before a court of justice where the question of moral fitrht, rather than legal right, is at issue, women would prove far superior to man as a .juror. Justice would be better served "in such cases with women in the iury box." ' |
