WOMEN JURORS.

Putaruru Press, Volume VII, Issue 269, 3 January 1929, Page 5

WOMEN JURORS.

TEN YEARS’ EXPERIENCE. It is nearly ten years since woman made her debut in the jury-box and on the Magisterial Bench. When first she Ventured on these hitherto sacred preserves of men, it was predicted that she would fail to temper justice with mercy as it had been tempered in the past, writes Elise Granger in an English paper. The theory that woman is by no means the softer, gentler sex when dealing with evildoers h:>s since been abundantly confirmed. ‘ ‘ One finds the fair sex more severe than the old-fash-ioned jury of men, ” said a Recorder quite recently, and quite correctly. Woman is not compassionate towards the criminal —towards those who break the law. It may be that, since the worst crimes are usually those committed against women, the frightfulness of crime in general makes a stronger impression on woman than it does on man.

As for offences against her sex, woman as a juror. Magistrate, or counsel is able to realise the feelings of the victim, her mental torture, her wounded pride, her fear, her disgust, her possibly blighted life. The woman sitting in judgment on erring humanity is glad to have these eases brought before her, so' that tho offenders may receive the punishment they deserve. Her sense of justice is rigid. It makes her proof against false pleas. Not so with men. Men are the sentimentalists. They see all' the reasons so forcefully urged why “the poor fellow should be let off’’ or “given another chance.” They are swayed by the eloquence of gifted counsel. Tears, a faint, a look of innocence, a pretty face, an appealing voice, are to the counsel merely tools of his sentence-reduction outfit. But woman’s heart does not thaw for an obviously guilty person. The one who has “dressed” for the Court, scene is recognised at a glance, and neither this nor any other Court affectation is allowed to deflect the balance of justice whe.e the women in judgment is concerned. She, as wom.an, is an expert in such matters.

The many illusions about woman’s nature, of which one hears so much in the courts of law, and which are held up as reasons for a woman culprit’s “fall,’ are to women so much legal humbug. But their men colleagues invariably accept them as gospol truth. There is nothing like making 'out woman to be some incomprehensible mystic thing of sex to “get round men.” But women are not to be so deceived. It is because of all these differences in men and women when sitting in judgment on erring humanity that women are labelled harder than their colleagues of the opposite sex.