Jury box

“ In particular, the trial judge, on the ground that it would be immaterial, infra, 344 U.S. 480, 73 S.Ct. 419, refused to permit petitioner to produce evidence as to all the scrolls in the jury box for the purpose of showing the existence of dots on the scrolls bearing the names of Negroes. The jury box was produced in court, opened, and counsel for defendant permitted to examine the scrolls. The trial judge made findings relating to the manner of selecting the veniremen, determining that no discrimination was practiced, and on these findings denied the motion to set aside the array. ”

“ He should enforce the same duty upon his client. Any attempt by an attorney to influence a juror by arguments or otherwise, will, of course, if discovered and brought to the notice of the court, lead to expulsion or suspension from the Bar, according to the degree and quality of the offence. The freedom of the jury-box from extraneous influences is a matter of such vital moment in our system that the courts are bound to watch over it with jealous eyes. ”

“ 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." ”

“ Inasmuch as the defence needs only to secure the vote of one juryman to procure a disagreement, this offer is a comparatively safe one for the defendant to make, since the prosecutor, who must secure unanimity on the part of the jury (at least in New York State) , can afford to take no chances of letting an incompetent or otherwise unfit talesman slip into the box. Caution requires him to examine the jury in every important case, and frequently this ruse on the part of the defendant makes it appear as if the State had less confidence in its case than the defence. ”

“ The holdings of this and other courts is substantially uniform, that where it is once clearly shown that there exists in the mind of the juror, at the time he is called to the jury box, a fixed and positive opinion as to the merits of the case, or as to the guilt or innocence of the defendant he is called to try, his statement that, notwithstanding such opinion, he can render a fair and impartial verdict according to the law and evidence, has little, if any, tendency to establish his impartiality. ”

“ The Bench faces the audience, and extends along the back of the Court. The Judge's desk c., with canopy overhead, Jury box r., Counsel's seats l.
Barristers, Attorneys, Jurymen and Public discovered.
Chorus.
Hark, the hour of ten is sounding:
Hearts with anxious fears are bounding,
Hall of justice crowds surrounding,
Breathing hope and fear—
For to-day in this arena,
Summoned by a stern subpoena,
Edwin, sued by Angelina,
Shortly will appear. ”

“ Usually by agreement of counsel in cases of this sort, we anticipate that we may perhaps need 100 men, and by agreement of counsel we would send the sheriff out and have 100 extra jurors summoned and brought in, and if we didn't get the panel out of that—get the jury out of that panel—we would send him out to get another panel.
Mr. Darrow—That is, drawn from a regular box?
The Court—No, sir, we have no regular jury box in this county—it is drawn if you want it—in a felony case it is drawn out of the box, yes, sir, if you require it, but in a misdemeanor it isn't. ”

“ Gentlemen of the Jury: Since last session the defendant in this case has handed me certain letters which I desire to read to you. The first appears to have been filed in the post office, El Paso, on the 20th day of June of the present year, and is as follows: 'Mr. Mills, if you want to win your case you must fix the jurymen in this case liberally or you will lose. A friend.' The second is as follows: 'Mr. Mills if you are going to do anything do it quick and have it money and nothing else. Go to the man at the west end of the jury box. It must be money or you will lose. ”

“ Its main object was to prevent any partiality by the sheriff or his officers in the framing of the jury panel; this object it successfully effected, but it also altered the qualification of jurors, and admitted to the jury-box a class of men who were hardly fitted for the position. ”

“ The Court has the right to excuse a juror if he is not on the assessment roll. The Supreme Court has decided that a man has the right to be investigated by a Grand Jury of nineteen men who are qualified according to the statute and none others. It is not necessary to take for grand jurors the nineteen whose names are first drawn from the box. ”

“ Jury duty has doubtless always been arduous and disagreeable, and in earlier days men were probably as anxious to escape serving on the jury as they are to-day. In one of the courts, which was not supposed to be for jury trials, twelve men once sat on a case without any jury-box in plain chairs and at the side of the room. ”

“ He gave his opinion that the attack had been caused by the mental strain, and he thought the juror might be able to come to the court after a while. Later in the evening, the juror, having improved, was brought over, and took his seat, with his associates, in the jury box. It appeared that they had agreed upon a verdict before the illness, but the recorder thought it inadvisable, under the circumstances, to then receive their verdict; advising them to again retire and confer. They did so, and shortly returned with their verdict. ”

“ People, knowing that they could not get in to see the trial, did not—beyond a few of the more curious—care to merely get a look at the prisoner.
The twelve jurymen's chairs were placed directly in front of the Judge's desk, and the witness box so placed that the witnesses in giving their testimony would be facing the Judge and jury. The witness stand stood almost in the middle of the court-room. On the right side was the prosecution's and on the left side the defense's tables, while between it and the jury was placed the stenographer's table. ”

“ In order that the juries in the United States may be legal—that is, in accordance with the principles of the common law—it is necessary that every adult male member of the state should have his name in the jury box, or be eligible as a juror. ”

“ The jurors were sworn in,—a special jury,—and long was the time taken, and many the threats made by the Chief Justice, before twelve gentlemen would consent to go into the box. Crowds were round the doors of the court, of which every individual man would have paid largely for standing-room to hear the trial; but when they were wanted for use, men would not come forward to accept a seat, with all that honour which belongs to a special juryman. ”

“ I desire to tamper with the jury law. I wish to so alter it as to put a premium on intelligence and character, and close the jury box against idiots, blacklegs, and people who do not read newspapers. ”

“ If the community be hostile to an accused a televised juror, realizing that he must return to neighbors who saw the trial themselves, may well be led 'not to hold the balance nice, clear and true between the State and the accused. * * *' Moreover, while it is practically impossible to assess the effect of television on jury attentiveness, those of us who know juries realize the problem of jury 'distraction.' The State argues this is de minimis since the physical disturbances have been eliminated. ”

“ On one shelf of it is seated a supposititious Judge, surrounded by some half-dozen pseudo female spectators; the bottom shelf being occupied by counsel, attorney, crier of the court, and plaintiff. The special jury are severally called in to occupy the right-hand shelf; and when the cupboard is quite full, all the forms of returning a verdict are gone through. This is for the plaintiff! Mr. Aubrey is ruined; and Mr. Titmouse jumps about, at the imminent risk of breaking the cupboard to pieces, having already knocked down a counsel or two, and rolled over his own attorney. ”

“ When the affidavit of a juror, as to the misconduct of himself or the other members of the jury, is made the basis of a motion for a new trial, the court must choose between redressing the injury of the private litigant and inflicting the public injury which would result if jurors were permitted to testify as to what had happened in the jury room. ”

“ A single volume of a good digest cites four thousand cases on the refinements of the rules governing precisely how a grand jury is to be organized and its work conducted in order to be able to return a legal indictment.
The attorney for the prisoner begins his game in court by endeavoring to find some violation of these technical requirements that would invalidate the act of the grand jury in returning an indictment against his client. If the attorney for the prisoner succeeds, the judge annuls the work of the grand jury, and the game begins over again. ”

“ There are connotations about the word challenge which are essentially dramatic. It implies a battle, a duel, a tournament.
It is difficult to ascertain exactly what principles govern the successful examination and selection of a jury. In Massachusetts and in certain important cases in New York, the whole panel of jurors summoned for the term of court have been investigated by detectives in order that the lawyer might have information about who was to be rejected or accepted as a juror to decide the case. ”

“ The purpose of the jury system is to impress upon the criminal defendant and the community as a whole that a verdict of conviction or acquittal is given in accordance with the law by persons who are fair. The verdict will not be accepted or understood in these terms if the jury is chosen by unlawful means at the outset. Upon these considerations, we find that a criminal defendant suffers a real injury when the prosecutor excludes jurors at his or her own trial on account of race. ”

“ A prosecutor's wrongful exclusion of a juror by a race-based peremptory challenge is a constitutional violation committed in open court at the outset of the proceedings. The overt wrong, often apparent to the entire jury panel, casts doubt over the obligation of the parties, the jury, and indeed the court to adhere to the law throughout the trial of the cause. The voir dire phase of the trial represents the "jurors' first introduction to the substantive factual and legal issues in a case." ”

“ Law is not bilateral. The defence, without spies or police, cannot call social power to the rescue of its innocent clients. Innocence has nothing on her side but reason, and reasoning which may strike a judge is often powerless on the narrow minds of jurymen. The whole department is against you. The eight jurors who have signed the indictment are each and all purchasers of national domain. Among the trial jurors we are certain to have some who have either sold or bought the same property. In short, we can get nothing but a Malin jury. ”

“ Even more than this, the names of the twelve jurymen and of the two supplementary jurymen will certainly be published in the French newspapers with details about the men themselves and their professions, before the trial begins, and this of itself forms an abuse which must inevitably react on the absolute impartiality of a jury, which should be a first necessity of any criminal trial in any country, for numbers of newspapers will tell them what they ought to do and what their verdict ought to be. ”

“ And, certainly the reliability of the jury [p101] as a factfinder hardly seems likely to be a function of its size.
It might be suggested that the 12-man jury gives a defendant a greater advantage since he has more "chances" of finding a juror who will insist on acquittal and thus prevent conviction. But the advantage might just as easily belong to the State, which also needs only one juror out of twelve insisting on guilt to prevent acquittal. ”

“ The attorney for the commonwealth—that is, the attorney who prosecutes the accused—may CHALLENGE—that is, object to—a juror, but he must assign a reason for his objection, and if the judge decides in favor of his objection, the person challenged is not put on the jury. A panel is a list of persons summoned to serve as jurors.
To SUMMON is to call or notify a person or persons to appear in court. A person who is summoned to attend as a juror and who, without sufficient reason, fails or neglects to do so, may be punished by a fine of not less than five nor more than twenty dollars. ”

“ We told you, in reference to the Laurada trial, that it was necessary for all the twelve jurymen to agree before a verdict could be secured.
When a trial is finished and the case is given to the jury, the jurymen in the charge of the sheriff are locked up in the jury-room and kept there until they arrive at a decision or the judge dismisses them.
When the jurors arrive in their own room, a ballot is taken, and if the vote is not unanimous they begin a regular discussion of the case. ”

“ It would be very strange if our system of law permitted a judge to act as a grand jury and then try the very persons accused as a result of his investigations. Perhaps no State has ever forced a defendant to accept grand jurors as proper trial jurors to pass on charges growing out of their hearings. [7] A single 'judge-grand jury' is even more a part of the accusatory process than an ordinary lay grand juror. Having been a part of that process a judge cannot be, in the very nature of things, wholly disinterested in the conviction or acquittal of those accused. ”