091-089.xml

Title: [9 Feb y 1807 Omitt 30 1 Letter]

Description: 9 Feb y 1807

Omitt 30 1

Letter IV

Resolut. 6.7.8.9.

Juries

After 2. Expence

J.B. Juries not puppets

Any Juryman, when they do enter the Jury box, come there for use, not for mere show /Endowed with human reason, they are designed to exercise it/: they are neither painted men /figure/ on a flat board to make a figure with, nor puppets, waiting for learned hands to pull the wires.

In English practice, among the causes which are set down as to be tried, and as actually tried by Juries, what (might it not be neither of curiosity at least to know, my Lord?) is the proportional [...?], of these to check the mind of no one individual in the Jury box is so much no permitted to apply itself? like the antecedent procedure, the decision is let fall /chops itself down/, upon some[?] mechanical principle, with some customary lie /a lawyer's lie/ under the name of fiction, for a [...?] mobile: a Jurer is withdrawn, so the plaintiff is called, or the verdict a verdict which nobody has given is taken /taking/ upon this or that one of half a dozen or more counts, one of perhaps a lie of the plaintiff's, all of them to a certainty lawyer's lies but that one. The Jury men slur[?] /Jury box slurs[?]/, wondering then[?] should be so much hearing in the world, proud to think how more fate is [...?] by them without the trouble of a sure assured thought, satisfied that every thing must be right, because they know nothing about the matter. The student swells with conscious pride, waiting for the day when he too is to have a hand in the conduct of so exquisite a piece of misdecision: wondering how society can be kept together, in countires where it is unknown /where hard lot has benefit then of so unspeakable a benefit/: believing that Justice is seated upon lies, believing and with as firm a faith as ever Platonist believed with, [...?] the world is founded upon numbers.

093-239.xml

Title: [29 July 1806 Scotch Reform]

Description: 29 July 1806

Scotch Reform

No Jury at first

Appeal to Jury

What distinguishes Jurymen from Judges (I mean permanent Judges I say for shortness Judges for Jurymen are Judges) is that Jurymen are not used to the business and Judges are. In point of education Jurymen when not compleatly unqualified, are very indifferently qualified in comparison of Judges. Security against excepted partiality in respect of no one qualification can you ever expect a Juryman to be equal to a Judge. But in ordinary cases the very timber[?] in which they are heaped together is itself a most inconvenient obstacle to good judicature: and an obstacle the force of which even in Judges.

In short there is but one description of cases though that a most important one, in which Jurors are any thing better than a nuisance and that is where Judges [...?] to the are not fit to be trusted. These cases are not altogether wanting but happily the extent of them is but /comparatively/ small. They may be tolerably well included in this description cases where there is or is apt to be a conflict of interests or affections between government and people or between the lower and the higher orders. Political libels and cases of Treason and Sedition afford the principal examples. Over and over again Judges would have destroyed the constitution and with it the liberty of the people had it not been for Juries. I am unable to conceive a probable state of things in which they would not. If a libel I know no other definition I mean under existing law than that of a writing disagreable to those who have to judge of it.

093-011.xml

Title: [Jan y 1807 To L d Greville]

Description: Jan y 1807

To L d Greville

Facienda

Outline

Appeal & Jury

10. If there are twenty facts thus unconnected with /independent of/ each other - each of them may be tried in a different place and consequently in a different Sheriff - Wick, if the effect of such division be, as frequently it may be attended with a diminution of delay vexation and expense.

In English trial by Jury, under the technical system, learning consists in use made of learning or in which the great study is to find pretences for defeating right, if on a second trial, a witness who should have proved the fact of the marriage in fact indisputably proved on the first trial, and necessary to be proved because not doubted if even then, happens to miss the appointment, or is kept out of the way, the adulterer goes free.

Pretended immunity no more to be exacted from Juries on these non-criminal causes, these in Scotland they are at present in criminal ones. The only pretence that could ever be found for this relick of barbarous profligacy - tenderness of life and so forth - in criminal causes ││ even this miserable /wretched/ pretence has no application to non-criminal ones. On this subject my lord, I hear a report which alarms me. But should any such attempt to corrupt the national morals and the national understanding really be made, the Scotch nation will betray such a disregard to morality and good sense as I am unwilling to suspect them of, if without remonstrance they submitt themselves in the capacity /character/ of Jurymen or in any other character, to be forced by torture to committ perjury.

If English Judges had been in use to kill] Debtors for their own eating instead of helping to starve them in prison without eating them English Lawyers would be as strenuous and unanimous[?] in proclaiming the necessity of these meals to the preservation of the constitution, as now they are in proclaiming the matchless excellence and indispensable necessity of that constitution which by unresisted breach irreststible torture converts into perjurers its favourite class of Judges.

/of that forcing machine, by which good men and true //jurors// are manufactured by wholesale into perjurers/