Daily Independent

Locking Up the Jurymen

Outrageous and Possibly Illegal Custom That Has Come Down From Old Times.

Some of the shabby brocade of court etiquette has been cleared out of our courts, such as gowns and wigs. Some that still hangs in faded shreds is lusty, but inoffensive. But some surviving practices are seriously objectionable.

For instance, the outrageous habit of locking jurymen up.

Why?

During the progress of a civil case which lasts three or four days jurymen can go home nights. But when the case is given to the jury, the jury must go into continuous session, under lock and key, until it reaches a verdict. There is no sufficient reason why we should not go home at the end of a day, and come back to our work next morning, just as we men do in any other business. The imprisonment of a jury tends to hasty decisions, to the forced verdicts of weary minds incapacitated for thinking. Much better to drop a difficult case, go home, sleep, come fresh to the jury room in the morning and resume deliberation.

If jurymen are in danger of being tampered with after a case is given to them, then they are in equivalent danger of being tampered with during the progress of the case.

The incarceration of the jury is, I hold, against the rights and liberties of citizens.

I am willing to give a portion of my time, without pay, to public business; but I resent the turning of the sheriff's key behind my back. I resent having to walk down to the street to supper (or breakfast!) in military or criminal column-by-twos. The judge very often has to spend several days in deciding a question of law. Why not lock him up until his mind works to a conclusion?

Case and Comment.