Jury mast

“ The public impatience to know the constitution of the jury panel was immense; and Judge Jackson, who was no lip Liberal, but a Tory and a bigot, acted with commendable fairness. He ordered it to be read aloud the day before my trial. Lo! the prolific Government had conceived a new device. Felony cases are invariably tried by a common jury. So they have been tried for centuries. So Mitchel, Martin, Williams, and O'Doherty had been tried. But you summoned for this Commission, not only special jurors, but special jurors alone. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ For example, Lumpkin stated that all objections to the impaneling of the grand jury should be made by challenge to the array before the indictment is found, where the illegality is known, or, if not known, by plea in abatement to the indictment; objections to 'certain jurors' on the trial jury should be raised by a challenge to the juror when put upon the defendant. ”

“ They are, however, doing the best that they can and, as I have indicated, theirs is a grave responsibility, because it is irrevocable. When a jury determines a case that terminates the case and if Counsel may have made an unfortunate choice then his client suffers the consequences.
'Now, the Court can not help but feel that the broadcast referred to in these cases must have had an indelible effect upon the public mind and that that effect was one that was bound to follow the members of the panel into the jury room. ”

“ Our holding there that the determination of whether an injured person was a 'member of a crew' is to be left to the finder of fact meant that juries have the same discretion they have in finding negligence or any other fact. The essence of this discretion is that a jury's decision is final if it has a reasonable basis, whether or not the appellate court agrees with the jury's estimate. ”

“ It is difficult to believe that any lawyer, even a hack, would have followed such high handed procedure in instructing a jury. It's no wonder that the jury balked and public opinion is outraged.
'The fact that a serviceman is involved lends drama to the event. But it could have happened to anyone, it can happen to anyone, with a layman sitting as judge in a case where fine points of law are involved. ”

“ But, and this is another difference between the real and the ideal in the jury system, we have in a large number of cases the more extraordinary spectacle of a jury solemnly sitting though a trial for the purpose of listening to the evidence and forming their own opinion as to the guilt or innocence of the accused, and then being instructed by the court as to the verdict they shall find. It is, as every one knows, the most common of occurrences for the judge to lecture the jury upon their verdict and to refuse to receive it. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Having found that the vessel was 'A 2' at Rio and Baltimore, according to the standard of those places, it was but one step further to the conclusion, that she ought to have been and would have been rated A 2 at New York.
There are no cases in which it is more important to the right administration of justice that the rules of law should be carefully applied in trials by jury, than in those of the class to which this case belongs. The admission of this testimony, in my judgment, was an error. If such a usage existed as the second part of the instruction supposed, it entered into the contract. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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." ”

“ Counsel, in making it, necessarily assumed, as they had a right to, that any communication from the jury would be made in open court, and that they must necessarily be offered an opportunity to withdraw the request already preferred or to vary it. It is hardly fair to say that a general request to hold the jury for a verdict can be properly applied to such a situation as subsequently developed by the communication of the jury showing their views as to the various defendants. ”

“ Thus the jury, as they said, was a great safeguard. The English have always attached great value to their system of trial by jury. The plan is retained in this country, though there is less necessity for it under our institutions. Now, in the Star Chamber, it had never been the custom to employ a jury. The members of the court decided the whole question; and as they were entirely in the interest [Pg 123] of the government, the government, of course, had the fate of every person accused under their direct control. ”

“ And though the powers of a judge even when acting as a one-man grand jury may be, as Michigan holds, judicial in their nature, [11] the due process clause may apply with one effect on the judge's grand jury investigation, but with quite a different effect when the judge-grand jury suddenly makes a witness before it a defendant in a contempt case.
Here we are concerned, not with petitioner's rights as a witness in a secret grand jury session, but with his rights as a defendant in a contempt proceeding. ”

“ This lawyer now selects a jury in thirty minutes.
Of course, some examination into the general qualifications of jurors and their possible bias in the case is imperative, and frequently the interposition of a peremptory challenge is not only justifiable, but absolutely necessary. A talesman will sometimes betray by an inflection of his voice a sentiment or prejudice which his words deny, or suggest to the vigilant counsel for the defendant the juror's susceptibility to the insidious flattery of the prosecutor in making him a part of the "organization of the court." ”

“ 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. ”

“ In the federal courts, in capital cases, the defendant must be furnished with a copy of the indictment and a list of the jurors summoned to court and of the government witnesses, at least two days before the trial.
Whether impanelling the jury for the trial of a case is a long or short process will depend largely on the intelligence and firmness of the judge who holds the court. Each side can challenge a certain number of the jurors in attendance without stating any reasons for it, as well as any and every one of them for cause shown. ”

“ Thus, except for the closing arguments for the prosecution and the return of the jury's verdict, there was no 'live' telecasting of the trial. And, even for purposes of delayed telecasting on later news programs, no words or other sounds were permitted to be recorded while the members of the jury were being selected or while any witness was testifying. No witnesses and no jurors were televised or photographed over their objection. ”

“ The judge sat thoughtful and motionless. The jurymen leaned forward in their seats.
"If your Honor please," said Mason, rising, "this is a matter of law, plain, clear, and so well settled in the State of New York that even counsel for the People should know it. The question before your Honor is simple. If the corpus delicti, the body of the crime, has been proven, as required by the laws of the commonwealth, then this case should go to the jury. If not, then it is the duty of this Court to direct the jury to find the prisoner not guilty. There is here no room for judicial discretion. ”

“ 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. ”

“ An individual exposed to publicity qualitatively akin to the publicity at issue in Irvin and Rideau is necessarily disqualified from jury service no matter how earnestly he professes his impartiality. [2] But unless the trial court asks a prospective juror exactly what he has read or heard about a case, the court will not be able to determine whether the juror comes within this class. Cf. Murphy v. Florida, supra, 421 U.S., at 800-802, 95 S.Ct., at 2036-37 (performing careful analysis of content of pretrial publicity to which jurors had been exposed before rejecting impartiality challenge) ”

“ No one of them is a prosecuting attorney or law-enforcement officer ferreting out crime. It would be very difficult for officers of the state seriously to abuse or deceive a witness in the presence of the grand jury. Similarly the presence of the jurors offers a substantial safeguard against for officers' misrepresentation, unintentional or otherwise, of the witness's statements and conduct before the grand jury. The witness can call on the grand jurors if need be for their normally unbiased testimony as to what occurred before them. ”

“ We cannot believe that if the evidence, as disclosed by the record, which need not be recited, had appeared in a common-law action against the respondent, a court would be justified in taking the case from the jury, and that if the jury had found against the respondent, its verdict would not be allowed to stand. The finding by the Interstate Commerce Commission that the respondent was a 'common carrier,' and therefore subject to the regulatory provisions of the Act, ought not to have less weight than a jury's verdict. ”

“ In a State where there is no final mandatory or balancing stage in the sentencing process that could allow a single juror to control the ultimate outcome, it simply imposes a proof requirement that must be met before the evidence can be used as a mitigating factor specifically found by the jury as a whole. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It cannot be disputed that, without the overt, significant participation of the government, the peremptory challenge system, as well as the jury trial system of which it is a part, simply could not exist. As discussed above, peremptory challenges have no utility outside the jury system, a system which the government alone administers. In the federal system, Congress has established the qualifications for jury service, see 28 U.S.C. § 1865, and has outlined the procedures by which jurors are selected. ”

“ At the Assizes the writ was therefore executed before the Judge. The witness, the shepherd, the same witness, was called, and proved the fact, that I was upon the plaintiff's down, and as the case was totally undefended, the Judge directed the Jury to give a shilling damages. The Jury hesitated; every man amongst them well knew the facts; they retired, and, after an hour's deliberation, they returned a "farthing damages." If I had been present to ask the witness one question, the Jury would have inevitably returned a verdict of "no damages;" ”