Mixed Jury’s Bedroom

Hokitika Guardian, 22 May 1922, Page 1

Mixed Jury’s Bedroom

0 <>—< * SCREEN OF SHEETS.

NEM' YORK, March S.

The City of St. Paul. Minnesota., is in,a slate of upheaval following the revelation that seven women who were serving oil a jury which failed to agree, were locked up for two nights in the same room as the five men jurors.

This morning the Assize Court was stormed by scandalised citizens, headed by the husbands of the seven women. One of these expressed lii.s sentiments to the judge in such terms that he was committed promptly for contempt of court. One juify woman, Mrs Josephine Brown .has given a detailed account of her experience during the two nights. “ The ’first night,” she relates, - “we just sat around on the edge ol our beds and talked about the ease until we were nearly'dead. Then someone mentioned about going to bed. Urn sure it was a man.

“The men retired to a corner, where they sat facing a wall. M’e took the sheets off our beds and tried to make screens of them. Then we crawled in and pretended to sleep. But we did not sleep nmch. 1 assure you. One woman talked all night.

“Tn t]ii> morning, long before daylight, to tin' accompaniment of loud snores hv (lie men, we got up and dressed. The second night was a repetition of the first.”

No statinent has yet been issued by any of the wives of the five men jurors, hut a newspaper correspondent who sought an interview with them established the fact that one wife had seined the opnortunitv afforded by her husband’s detent ion to attend a dance with another man.