| The jury system puts a ban upon intelligence
and honesty, and a premium upon ignorance, stupidity and perjury. It is
a shame that we must continue to use a worthless system because it was good
a thousand years ago...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.
But no doubt I shall be defeated--every effort I make to save the country
"misses fire." - Roughing It |
 AI image created by R. Kent Rasmussen |
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We have a criminal jury system which is superior to any in the world;
and its efficiency is only marred by the difficulty of finding twelve
men every day who don't know anything and can't read. Our admirable jury system enabled the persecuted ex-officials to secure
a jury of nine gentlemen from a neighboring asylum and three graduates
from Sing Sing, and presently they walked forth with characters vindicated. |
| On the inquest it was shown that Buck Fanshaw, in the delirium of a wasting
typhoid fever, had taken arsenic, shot himself through the body, cut his
throat, and jumped out of a four-story window and broken his neck--and after
due deliberation, the jury, sad and tearful, but with intelligence unblinded
by its sorrow, brought in a verdict of death "by the visitation of
God." What could the world do without juries? - Roughing It The humorist who invented trial by jury played a colossal practical joke upon the world, but since we have the system we ought to try and respect it. A thing which is not thoroughly easy to do, when we reflect that by command of the law a criminal juror must be an intellectual vacuum, attached to a melting heart and perfectly macaronian bowels of compassion. -"Foster's Case," New York Tribune, 10 March 1873 |
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