Essay on the Trial By Jury Part 17

The following extract from a speech of Lord Brougham, in the House of Lords, confesses the same difficulty:

There was another subject, well worthy of the consideration of government during the recess, the expediency, or rather the absolute necessity, of some arrangement for the preparation of bills, not merely private, but public bills, in order that legislation might be consistent and systematic, and that the courts might not have so large a portion of their time occupied in endeavoring to construe acts of Parliament, in many cases unconstruable, and in most cases difficult to be construed." Law Reporter, 1848, p. 525.

[6] This condemnation of written laws must, of course, be understood as applying only to cases where principles and rights are involved, and not as condemning any governmental arrangements, or instrumentalities, that are consistent with natural right, and which must be agreed upon for the purpose of carrying natural law into effect. These things may be varied, as expediency may dictate, so only that they be allowed to infringe no principle of justice. And they must, of course, be written, because they do not exist as fixed principles, or laws in nature.

CHAPTER VI. JURIES OF THE PRESENT DAY ILLEGAL

It may probably be safely a.s.serted that there are, at this day, no legal juries, either in England or America. And if there are no legal juries, there is, of course, no legal trial, nor "judgment," by jury.

In saying that there are probably no legal juries, I mean that there are probably no juries appointed in conformity with the principles of the common law.

The term jury is a technical one, derived from the common law; and when the American const.i.tutions provide for the trial by jury, they provide for the common law trial by jury; and not merely for any trial by jury that the government itself may chance to invent, and call by that name. It is the thing, and not merely the name, that is guarantied. Any legislation, therefore, that infringes any essential principle of the common law, in the selection of jurors, is unconst.i.tutional; and the juries selected in accordance with such legislation are, of course, illegal, and their judgments void.

It will also be shown, in a subsequent chapter, [1] that since Magna Carta, the legislative power in England (whether king or parliament) has never had any const.i.tutional authority to infringe, by legislation, any essential principle of the common law in the selection of jurors. All such legislation is as much unconst.i.tutional and void, as though it abolished the trial by jury altogether. In reality it does abolish it.

What, then, are the essential principles of the common law, controlling the selection of jurors?

They are two.

1. That all the freemen, or adult male members of the state, shall be eligible as jurors. [2]

Any legislation which requires the selection of jurors to be made from a less number of freemen than the whole, makes the jury selected an illegal one.

If a part only of the freemen, or members of the state, are eligible as jurors, the jury no longer represent "the country,"

but only a part of "the country."

If the selection of jurors can be restricted to any less number of freemen than the whole, it can be restricted to a very small proportion of the whole; and thus the government be taken out of the hands of " the country," or the whole people, and be thrown into the hands of a few.

That, at common law, the whole body of freemen were eligible as jurors, is sufficiently proved, not only by the reason of the thing, but by the following evidence:

1. Everybody must be presumed eligible, until the contrary be shown. We have no evidence, that I am aware of, of a prior date to Magna Carta, to disprove that all freemen were eligible as jurors, unless it be the law of Ethelred, which requires that they be elderly [3] men. Since no specific age is given, it is probable, I think, that this statute meant nothing more than that they be more than twenty-one years old. If it meant anything more, it was probably contrary to the common law, and therefore void.

2. Since Magna Carta, we have evidence showing quite conclusively that all freemen, above the age of twenty-one years, were eligible as jurors.

The Mirror of Justices, (written within a century after Magna Carta,) in the section " Of Judges" that is, jurors says:

"All those who are not forbidden by law may be judges (jurors).

To women it is forbidden by law that they be judges; and thence it is, that feme coverts are exempted to do suit in inferior courts.

On the other part, a villein cannot be a judge, by reason of the two estates, which are repugnants; persons attainted of false judgments cannot be judges, nor infants, nor any under the age of twenty-one years, nor infected persons, nor idiots, nor madmen, nor deaf, nor dumb, nor parties in the pleas, nor men excommunicated by the bishop, nor criminal persons. * * And those who are not of the Christian faith cannot be judges, nor those who are out of the king's allegiance." Mirror of Justices, 59 60.

In the section " Of Inferior Courts," it is said:

"From the first a.s.semblies came consistories, which we now call courts, and that in divers places, and in divers manners: whereof the sheriffs held one monthly, or every five weeks according to the greatness or largeness of the shires. And these courts are called county courts, where the judgment is by the suitors, if there be no writ, and is by warrant of jurisdiction ordinary. The other inferior courts are the courts of every lord of the fee, to the likeness of the hundred courts. There are other inferior courts which the bailiffs hold in every hundred, from three weeks to three weeks, by the suitors of the freeholders of the hundred.

All the tenants within the fees are bounden to do their suit there, and that not for the service of their persons, but for the service of their fees. But women, infants within the age of twenty-one years, deaf, dumb, idiots, those who are indicted or appealed of mortal felony, before they be acquitted, diseased persons, and excommunicated persons are exempted from doing suit." Mirror of Justices, 50 51.

In the section "Of the Sheriff's Turns," it is said:

"The sheriff's by ancient ordinances hold several meetings twice in the year in every hundred; where all the freeholders within the hundred are bound to appear for the service of their fees."

Mirror of Justices, 50.

The following statute was pa.s.sed by Edward I., seventy years after Magna Carta:

"Forasmuch also as sheriffs, hundreders, and bailiffs of liberties, have used to grieve those which be placed under them, putting in a.s.sizes and juries men diseased and decrepit, and having continual or sudden disease; and men also that dwelled not in the country at the time of the summons; and summon also an unreasonable number of jurors, for to extort money from some of them, for letting them go in peace, and so the a.s.sizes and juries pa.s.s many times by poor men, and the rich abide at home by reason of their bribes; it is ordained that from henceforth in one a.s.size no more shall be summoned than four and twenty; and old men above three score and ten years, being continually sick, or being diseased at the time of the summons, or not dwelling in that country, shall not be put in juries of pet.i.t a.s.sizes." St. 13 Edward I., ch. 38. (1285.)

Although this command to the sheriff's and other officers, not to summon, as jurors, those who, from age and disease, were physically incapable of performing the duties, may not, of itself, afford any absolute or legal implication, by which we can determine precisely who were, and who were not, eligible as jurors at common law, yet the exceptions here made nevertheless carry a seeming confession with them that, at common law, all male adults were eligible as jurors.

But the main principle of the feudal system itself, shows that all the full and free adult male members of the state that is, all who were free born, and had not lost their civil rights by crime, or otherwise must, at common law, have been eligible as jurors.

What was that principle? It was, that the state rested for support upon the land, and not upon taxation levied upon the people personally. The lands of the country were considered the property of the state, and were made to support the state in this way: A portion of them was set apart to the king, the rents of which went to pay his personal and official expenditures, not including the maintenance of armies, or the administration of justice. War and the administration of justice were provided for in the following manner. The freemen, or the free-born adult male members of the state who had not forfeited their political rights were ent.i.tled to land of right, (until all the land was taken up,) on condition of their rendering certain military and civil services, to the state. The military services consisted in serving personally as soldiers, or contributing an equivalent in horses, provisions, or other military supplies. The civil services consisted, among other things, in serving as jurors (and, it would appear, as witnesses) in the courts of justice. For these services they received no compensation other than the use of their lands.

In this way the state was sustained; and the king had no power to levy additional burdens or taxes upon the people. The persons holding lands on these terms were called freeholders in later times freemen meaning free and full members of the state.

Now, as the principle of the system was that the freeholders held their lands of the state, on the condition of rendering these military and civil services as rents for their lands, the principle implies that all the freeholders were liable to these rents, and were therefore eligible as jurors. Indeed, I do not know that it has ever been doubted that, at common law, all the freeholders were eligible as jurors. If all had not been eligible, we unquestionably should have had abundant evidence of the exceptions. And if anybody, at this day, allege any exceptions, the burden will be on him to prove them. The presumption clearly is that all were eligible.

The first invasion which I find made, by the English statutes, upon this common law principle, was made in I285, seventy years after Magna Carta. It was then enacted as follows:

"Nor shall, any be put in a.s.sizes or juries, though they ought to be taken in their own shire, that hold a tenement of less than the value of twenty shillings yearly. And if such a.s.sizes and juries be taken out of the shire, no one shall be placed in them who holds a tenement of less value than forty shillings yearly at the least, except such as be witnesses in deeds or other writings, whose presence is necessary, so that they be able to travel."

St. 13 .Edward I., ch. 38. (1285.)

The next invasion of the common law, in this particular, was made in 1414, about two hundred years after Magna Carta, when it was enacted:

"That no person shall be admitted to pa.s.s in any inquest upon trial of the death of a man, nor in any inquest betwixt party and party in plea real, nor in plea personal, whereof the debt or the damage declared amount to forty marks, if the same person have not lands or tenements of the yearly value of forty shillings above all charges of the same." 2 Henry V., st. 2, ch. 3. (1414.)

Other statutes on this subject of the property qualifications of jurors, are given in the note. [4]

From these statutes it will be seen that, since 1285, seventy years after Magna Carta, the common law right of all free British subjects to eligibility as jurors has been abolished, and the qualifications of jurors have been made a subject of arbitrary legislation. In other words, the government has usurped the authority of selecting the jurors that were to sit in judgment upon its own acts. This is destroying the vital principle of the trial by jury itself, which is that the legislation of the government shall be subjected to the judgment of a tribunal, taken indiscriminately from the whole people, without any choice by the government, and over which the government can exercise no control. If the government can select the jurors, it will, of course, select those whom it supposes will be favorable to its enactments.

And an exclusion of any of the freemen from eligibility is a selection of those not excluded.

It will be seen, from the statutes cited, that the most absolute authority over the jury box that is, over the right of the people to sit in juries has been usurped by the government; that the qualifications of jurors have been repeatedly changed, and made to vary from a freehold of ten shillings yearly, to one of "twenty pounds by the year at least above reprises." They have also been made different, in the counties of Southampton, Surrey, and Suss.e.x, from what they were in the other counties; different in Wales from what they were in England; and different in the city of London, and in the county of Middles.e.x, from what they were in any other part of the kingdom.

But this is not all. The government has not only a.s.sumed arbitrarily to cla.s.sify the people, on the basis of property, but it has even a.s.sumed to give to some of its judges entire and absolute personal discretion in the selection of the jurors to be impaneled in criminal cases, as the following statutes show.

"Be it also ordained and enacted by the same authority, that all panels hereafter to be returned, which be not at the suit of any party, that shall be made and put in afore any justice of gaol delivery or justices of peace in their open sessions to inquire for the king, shall hereafter be reformed by additions and taking out of names of persons by discretion of the same justices before whom such panel shall be returned; and the same justices shall hereafter command the sheriff, or his ministers in his absence, to put other persons in the same panel by their discretions; and that panel so hereafter to be made, to be goodand lawful. This act to endure only to the next Parliament " 11 Henry VII., ch. 24, sec.

6. (1495.)

This act was continued in force by 1 Henry VIII, ch. 11, (1509,) to the end of the then next Parliament.

It was reenacted, and made perpetual, by 3 Henry VIII., ch. 12.

(1511.)

These acts gave unlimited authority to the king's' justices to pack juries at their discretion; and abolished the last vestige of the common law right of the people to sit as jurors, and judge of their own liberties, in the courts to which the acts applied.

Yet, as matters of law, these statutes were no more clear violations of the common law, the fundamental and paramount "law of the land," than were those statutes which affixed the property qualifications before named; because, if the king, or the government, can select the jurors on the ground of property, it can select them on any other ground whatever.

Any infringement or restriction of the common law right of the whole body of the freemen of the kingdom to eligibility as jurors, was legally an abolition of the trial by jury itself. The juries no longer represented "the country," but only a part of the country; that part, too, on whose favor the government chose to rely for the maintenance of its power, and which it therefore saw fit to select as being the most reliable instruments for its purposes of oppression towards the rest. And the selection was made on the same principle, on which tyrannical governments generally select their supporters, viz., that of conciliating those who would be most dangerous as enemies, and most powerful as friends that is, the wealthy. [6]

These restrictions, or indeed any one of them, of the right of eligibility as jurors, was, in principle, a complete abolition of the English const.i.tution; or, at least, of its most vital and valuable part. It was, in principle, an a.s.sertion of a right, on the part of the government, to select the individuals who were to determine the authority of its own laws, and the extent of its own powers. It was, therefore, in effect, the a.s.sertion of a right, on the part of the government itself, to determine its own powers, and the authority of its own legislation, over the people; and a denial of all right, on the part of the people, to judge of or determine their own liberties against the government. It was, therefore, in reality, a declaration of entire absolutism on the part of the government. It was an act as purely despotic, in principle, as would have been the express abolition of all juries whatsoever. By "the law of the land," which the kings were sworn to maintain, every free adult male British subject was eligible to the jury box, with full power to exercise his own judgment as to the authority and obligation of every statute of the king, which might come before him. But the principle of these statutes (fixing the qualifications of jurors) is, that n.o.body is to sit in judgment upon the acts or legislation of the king, or the government, except those whom the government itself shall select for that purpose. A more complete subversion of the essential principles of the English const.i.tution could not be devised.

The juries of England are illegal for another reason, viz., that the statutes cited require the jurors (except in London and a few other places) to be freeholders. All the other free British subjects are excluded; whereas, at common law, all such subjects are eligible to sit in juries, whether they be freeholders or not.