Kentucky Gazette

THE INTREPID JURYMAN.

Extracted from a late publication entitled An Excursion from Sidmouth in Devonshire to Chester. By the Rev. Edmund Butcher.

'I am happy in waiting our country women of trial by Jury. I have lately met with a proof of its excellence, which ought not to be forgotten.

A Jury on the North-West circuit in Ireland tried a case in which much of the local consequences of a gentleman in the neighbourhood was implicated. It was a landlord's prosecution against one of his tenants, for assault and battery committed on the person of the prosecutor by the defendant, in resisting bodily handling an innocent & laudable goal, from personal conviction. When the defendant was brought into court, the prosecutor also appeared, and swore to every fact laid down in the indictment. The poor defendant had no lawyer to tell his story; he, however, made his own cause effectively, by appealing to the judgment of what he was. Jury do I but

The Judge was enraged, and told the jury they must go back and re-consider the matter; adding he was as astonished at their giving such an unfair verdict. The jury did go back, and in a quarter of an hour returned, when the foreman, a reasonable old man, was selected.

Foreman: My lord, in accordance with your desire we went back to our room; but, as we there found no reason to alter our opinions or our verdict, we now return it to you, in the same words as before—with not guilty. We heard your lordship's charge but we do not accept it as properly binding upon us.

My Lord Casttir.
Individually, and in our private capacities, it is true, we are insignificant men; we claim nothing out of this box, above the common regard due to our humble yet honest stations; but my Lord, assembled here, as a jury, we cannot be insensible of the great importance of the office we now sustain. We feel glad that we are appointed as you are, by the law and the constitution: not only to act impartially between the king and his subjects, the offended and the offender; to form the barrier of the people against the possible influence, prejudice, or corruption of the bench; to which we do not wish to offer the smallest degree of disrespect, much less of insult: we pay it the respect which one tribunal should pay another, for the common honour of both.
This jury did not accuse the bench of partiality or oppression—no; we looked upon it as the sanctuary of truth and justice:—still my lord, we cannot erase from our minds the records of our school books.—By them we were taught that kings and judges are but fallible mortals: and that the seat of justice has been polluted by a Tressilian, a Scroggs, and Jeffreys.' The judge frowned at these words, but the intrepid juror thus proceeded: 'My lord, I am but a poor man; yet I am a free born subject, and a member of the constitution, nay, I am now higher, for I am now one of its representatives. I therefore claim, for myself and fellow-jurors, liberty of speech.'
The Judge here resumed his complacency, and the orator continued his address. 'We have nothing to do, my lord, with your private character; in this place it is veiled by your official one: we know you here only in that of judge; and as such, we would respect you; you know nothing of us, but as a jury, and in that situation, we look to you for reciprocal respect; because we know of no man, however high his title or rank in whom the law or the constitution would warrant an unprovoked insult toward that tribunal, in which they have vested the dearest and most valuable privileges they possess.
We sit here, my lord, sworn to give a verdict according to our consciences, and the best of our judgments on the evidence before us. We have in our minds, discharged our duty as honest men. If we have erred, we are accountable, not to your lordship, nor to the king who appointed; but to a higher power, the King of kings.'
The bench was dumb, the bar silent; astonishment and applause murmured through the crowd—and the poor man was discharged.