Grand juries.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 7, 3 October 1907, Page 4

Grand juries.

SHOULD THEY BE ABOLISHED? VIEWS OF THE'CHIEF JUSTICE AND OTHERS. Should' the Grand Jury system Lie abolished ? The question was asked very tentatively at first, when certain indications seemed to hint that 11 longhonoured institution might not be without its shortcomings. It was repeated urgently and anxiously a few months ago in coimcction' with a Christehurch case. , Tho Opunake Case. It is likely that the'action of the Grand Jury at Now Plymouth, which on Monday brought ill a verdict of " no. bill" against the accused persons in the tarring and feathering case, after Mr. Justico Denniston had most strongly impressed upon them that their only proper courso was to find a "true bill," will revive the grand jury question. The Judge,'in liis address to the grand jurors, said: " Thero had undoubtedly been a disgusting assault under peculiarly disgusting circumstances. This man had been attacked by a number of others in direct contravention of the statute. . . . All; the accused'liad been identified by the various witnesses as having been present, and on the main points the corroboration of evidence was unimpeachable. ... It was clearly tho duty of the jury to find a true bill." The Grand Jury were absent for an hour, after which the foreman announced that, by a majority, they would return 'no bill. The decision, it was stated, had been arrived at only on account of the unsatisfactory , nature of the evidence, and not from any personal feeling. His Honour, after a reiteration of his previous opinion, as formed from a careful study of tho depositions, formally discharged accused. The Ghief Justice's Views. The ease has not affected the opinion hold by tho Chief Justice (Sir Robert Stout) as to tho usefulness of grand juries. To a representative of The Dominion yesterday ho said:-^-"I think grand juries ought to be retained. They are not of great service just now, but they may be of more service.. They are a barrier of liberty, and the Americans have found them useful. I don't see any need to abolish them. Grand juries may sometimes go wrong,.as well as other juries, but that is not a reason for their abolition. I don't know anything about tho New Plymouth case. I have not seen tho evidence.' A Saving Point, "Wo . don't knowj what tho witnesses may have said before the Grand Jury," .His Honour added. "They .may not have given tho same evidence before them as before the Magistrate.. That being so, I don't soe how wo aro to criticise. I have only known one case in my experience in which a majority of the Grand Ju.'y found 110 bill, when I thought' thoy should hove found a true bill.. It happenod onco when I was on circuit, and even- in that case I don't know what tho . evidenco-was which tho 'Grand Jury had beforo them. I cannot spoab about the Christehurch case." Continuing, his Honour stated that tho Grand Jury system had served a useful-purpose in the past. He know that some of tho judges thought it should he. abolished, but he had nover held -that opinion, and did not hold it now. Tho institution was a useful buffer ' botweon State and prisoner. There was a chance of the Grand Jury going wrong, as thero was a chance of othor juries , going- wrong, but 0110 would, not destroy tho system 011 that 'account.;.'Thero-was also the question, what would be substituted? American System. Referring , to the American system,' His Honour stated, that grand juries had much'fuller powers in tho United States than in Now Zealand. Ho did not think, however, that it was necessary to extond the functions of tho system hero in this country's present condition. The New Zealand system, as 110 thought, was working very well. There might be an occasional failure of justice—judges and juries all went wrong somo times; tlicy were only human; how could it bo helped? Not So Bad. Speaking 011 tho same question, Mr. Martin Chapman, K.C., stated that in Victoria tho Grand Jury system does not exist, or,_ rather, tho cases in which grand juries are requsiitionod' are very rare. The bills are presented by the Attorney-General, who has the samo power to throw out bills as a Grand Jury. Power, however, is reserved by, presumably, the Court in extreme cases to call a Grand Jury, and re-submit to it the caso the Attorney-General had dealt witlu Mr. Chapman said that 110 remembered a caso whore a member, of Parliament had been charged with fraud of some kind, but the Attorney-General absolutely refuse to return a truo bill. A Grand Jury was summoned, overriding tho Attorney-General, and, if., 110 remembered right, found a true bill. Tho system was. not faultless, for if tho accused bo a strong supporter of a Government or a rr.ombor of the. Labour party, it is quite possible that an Attorney-General might rcfuso a truo bill. He could not suggest anything as a substitute for tho prcsont system—llo had not given tho subject a great deal of thought, but bo supposed it would have to bo a Government official of some sort or the Public Prosecutor—ono that .would not shield the guilty for public purposes. But tho Grand Jury system was not so bad. You could not got perfection in anything, and thero must bo miscarriages of justices now and again. They Would blunder occasionally, but they got through all right. 0:1 tho whole. Tho Ineptitude of Juries. Mr. Samuel Carroll, secretary of tho Cliambr of Commerce, and iv!n has scon much servieo on juries, though both grand juries and commerce, thought both grand and common juries were forgetful of tho duties they had to perform, and on occasions constituted themselves judgo and counsel. " I havo known," said Mr. Carroll, "many cases of persons known to be guilty being found not guilty for reasons quite outside their position as jurymen, which was no business of theirs. I'll tell you of a case. Years ago a mental invalid escaped from the institution. His derangement took tho form of incendiarism, and when it was known that 110 was abroad there was a good deal of fear and excitement. It happened he was caught at 8 o'clock one evening and taken back to the mental hospital. When the officer-in-charge arrived at the institution at 10 p.m. lie was informed of tho arrest, and though tho patient had been put to bed, lie, 011 a bitterly cold night, ordered him out in the open, naked, and' made him stand under a cold shower-bath for a length of time. Tho officer was arraigned for cruelty. Tho evidence proved tho man guilty enough, but so exercised wore somo of the jury that tho judge would bo unduly severe 011 the accused that a verdict of ' not guilty' was returned. At a second trial, however, lie was found guilty, and was fined £50. Then 0110 of my fellow-jurymen—for I was on the case—said that if ho knew the Judge's intention it might have influenced him in the first trial, and that had he known it was only to be a fine he would havo found him guilty.

"Another caso l was in also shows the weakness of tlio jury system. A man and his son had been sheep-steal-ing, and.the wife (and mother) was called to give ovidonce, in the course of which she testified that she had heard her husband and son speaking of having stolen the sheep. Good evidence enough. Then in the jury-room up jumped a member, and said, 'Pooh! did you ever hear of such a tiling, a •voman to go into the box and give such evidence—there must be some family troublo behind it.'- And they actually brought tho man- in not guilty. Discarding Evidenco. 11 1 remember another case where a man was brought- up on a charge ot attempting suicide by cutting his throat. Tlio doctor testified that he had been callcd, had found tho man lying on the floor with his throat cut, and that lie washed tho wound and stitched it up. A constablo also gavo evidence—all that was necessary to establish the case, when a juryman asked was that all tho evidence. Whero' was tho little girl that had seen the body? She was not forthcoming, and so impressed was. this juryman with what lie considered the paucity of evidence that ho actually induced the others, to bring in a verdict of.' not guilty,' in tlio face of the doctor's evidence. Of course, there was no suspicion or murder; all knew it to be attempted suicide." A Perfect Farce. Mr. Walter Nathan, of the firm of W. Mi Bannatyne and Co., thought the grand jury system a perfect'farce. Ho did not think a grand jury was needed, nor did ho believe that they must have something to take its place. He was for leaving it, to tlio magistrates, usually men of intelligence, who have legal knowledgo and a training to assist them; if in their opinion the case was serious enough to go to trial, surely it should not be left to a grand jury to say possibly that it should not. "Personally, I am in favour, of doing away with juries altogether, and leaving all the Supremo Court jury cases to a bench of three judges, who would bo a jury with all the legal knowledgo and tho training born of long, experience to assist them in coming to a decision."

The " Christchurch Press" recently printed tho following .interesting historical sketch of the origin of the jury system :—

In t-lio opinion of- many, tho time has come for tho abolition of the Grand Jury; but in tho days when legal institutions wore young the Grand Jury discharged a most impoitant function, and constituted a great advance on previously existing judicial methods. , To those acquainted- only with tho judicial system of tho present, the methods of administering justice in pro-jury days must appear startling. In those days people walked in dread of the Seen and of tho Unseen. The innocent wore assured of Divine interposition on their behalf; tho guilty had need to fear the frown of tho Almighty. A suspected criminal was put to tho ordeal. He walked bare-footed, over red-hot stones, or carried' a red-hot iron in his hand; or ho put his arm to the elbow into boiling water. If the-wound healed within, a. certain timo, lie . was innocent ; if otherwise, then he was guilty. For women, a different test was reserved ; thoy wore thrown into a pond ; tho innocent sank, but woo betide tlloso who floated. or swam. Yet another, but oveii more gruesome test might havo been applied.- It was tlio ordeal of tho "accursed morsel./' The accused was given .a,, rather .largo ■"mouthful of. bread to. chow and swallow. A priest, standing by, muttered an invocation tliat tho morse! might, cboko him if ho wero guilty. More than one innocent man—King Harold's father was said to bo oho of thorn —had, tho nerves or muscles of his throat so paralysed with fear ,that he fell a victim to . nothing - but his anxiety to provq his innoconco. With tho advent of ,tho Normans in. the olovonth century appeared yet. another method—trial by combat—wherein it was thought that victory always rested with tho innocent.

Barbarously ; crude, and unnecessarily cruel, as many of these methocls wore, yet the principle underlying them .was essentially tho sainn: as exists to-day, kings and their ministers recognising that a stable government could exist only when justice was done, to all, or at least when the people imagined/that justice was being done. Between those methods and trial by jury, a great and seemingly impassable gulf existed. Yet that gulf was insensibly bridged, and, strange though it appears, the two systems worked at- times alternatively and at times in conjunction. Tho merits of the jur.v system, however, soon becamd so obvious that it entirely superseded tho other,' though trial by combat was not formally abolished till I'Bl9. How, then,-was tho change effected? Historians' give conflicting- accounts, bift this much seems certain. The' Anglo-Saxons had a method by which an accused man was allowed to call twelve of his neighbours or kinsmen to swear to his innocence. There were his " compurgators." If his reputation could not procure him such a favour, ho had to undergo the ordeal. But a cliango was at hand when, in the latter half of the twelfth century, thero ascended tho English throne Henry 11, one of the ablest administrators and boldest reformers in English history. Ho found the country turbulent,, and injustice rife. He divided tho land into six circuits, and assigned threo judges to each with instructions to bold assizes at regular intervals in fixed towns. Ho commanded his sheriffs to choose twelve persons from each "hundred" (a name given to a district of a certain size), and four froj.ll each township, and these 111011 were to arrest and detain all suspected or known criminals. 'On the judge's arrival they presented these men for trial. Hero wo have not only a system of police, but also tho very origin of the Grand Jury itself. Tho criminals thus presented wero put by the judgo to tlio ordeal. Compurgation was abolished. Other changes followed rapidly. Witnesses of the crimo and of character wore admitted, but theso were added to tho regular jury to assist them in arriving at a vcrdict. Gradually, hut by stops, all minuto record whereof has been lost, trial by ordeal fell into disrepute, till in 1216 it was finally abolished. It was about this timo that a second or petty jury came into existence. It is believed that persons ac'cused by the Grand Jury woro given tho option of- being tried by another jury or by ordeal. The name of the benefactor who suggested this now almost' universally adopted reform is probably doomed to remain for ever unknown. Once tho Potty Jury was established, tho witnesses wero separrated from tho jurors and gave their evidence in open court. Thus in the fourteenth century there was firmly established a system of double juries, which, with trifling alterations, lias come down to our own time.

Mi\ Walter Leslie, a local artist who wields a elevei' brush in his leisure hours, has collected over 100 watercolours of New Zealand 'scenery, which are to be. submitted for sale by auction by Messrs. Alorrali mid Co. this afternoon. Most of the (jicturos aro little and good, depicting in some instances, bits of rare scenery .at the Kormnilecs and Bounty Islands, scenes that are not to be picked up every day, and also some nice little bits of New Zealand scenery. The collection includes a number of biack and whites and a few in senia. All are interesting.