OCR Text |
Show The "Intelligent Juror" I THE TRIAL now going on in Nashville for tho M killing of ex-Senator Carmack has one fea- ture which looks almost like a travesty on M the assumed sacredness of a jury trial. It re- M quired more than three weeks to select the jury, H and when that duty was completed, behold tho outcome. Four men on the jury are absolutely 11- literate, two others can barely read; the entire M twelve declared that they had read no newspaper since the shooting and some said they had not M read a newspaper in ten years. Much comment M is being indulged in by the eastern press over M that "intelligent jury," and it does seem strange M that such a jury could be picked up In any one M county in the United States. fl And still who knows? M We, In the United States, get our reverence M for tho "right of trial by jury" from England. When that was established, how many men in fl England could read? Juries are supposed in a M trial to judge the facts. It is a clear case that fl this Tennessee jury have no theories that they jH have picked up through reading newspapers and trashy books, to distract their attention from tho H facts as they are given on this trial. The only M danger from them is that, no matter what facts may be established, their verdict will uncon- H sclously, perhaps reflect merely the unwritten B code which very often governs in Tennessee and other states. But would a knowledge of how to H read and write, change the verdict? Again the H fact that they have no knowledge as knowledge H is esteemed by the world, is no proof that they have no wisdom. When the great war was at its !H height, a man who could neither read nor write, S said to this writer: "If you could only write ' what I think, we could settle this business in 'H half an hour." That showed at least that ho was l thinking and had his own opinions. That awak- ens another query, What is an "intelligent" jury? What constitutes that array of twelve men, which lawyers and newspapers delight in calling an m H S H "intelligent jury?" When juries were flrst made H by law an integral feature of trials, the lawyers Hj ' and some of the judges understood the law's re- H i quirements, while the juries Were mostly illiterate B Why were they needed at all? Why was it not Hr left for a -judge or an assemblage of judges to H decide upon a verdict? Was it not for the pur- Hr pose of obtaining men who, while they could not H read, could not, possibly, give their views in H words, still had that deeper knowledge of what H men are prone to do in the trials of this life? H Have not most legislatures in this country H been controlled by this same idea when they Hi have decreed that the ordinary intelligent man H who reads books, and newspapers, and who has H-j read newspaper accounts of a homicide, has dis- Hvj qualified himself from sitting as a juror in the Hf trial of a principal in the tragedy? H When a man reads of a homicide, he is al- H most certain to be impressed by the reading, but H in ninety cases out of a hundred that impression H is not a fixed opinion on his part, and, if an hon- H, est man, would not have the weight of a feather H with him, when the actual facts were made clear; H but the law says if it would require 'testimony to m change his impressions, . that fact would make Hj him incompetent to sit as a juror. H Are not the laws of most states a quassl com- H mand to pick up just such juries as this one in H Tennessee? Still it may not be so bad. When H the Savior selected his disciples, we suspect that H not half of them could read. But He selected H- them as chief agents for the redemption of the H human race. |