date

24 May 1808 Jury analysed,
24 May 1808

Jury analysed,

4 Ch. 3. Principal Utilities

§.2 — their importance Penal cases afford the most remarkable exemplification of this utility But of cases, penal in nature, though civil in name, the number & influences is important. These advantages, it is true, depend more obviously,

and indeed probably in a considerably greater degree on the application

of Jury trial to causes of the penal

class, in so far as they are capable of being distinguished a distinction in nature accompanies the distinction

in name than in its application to non-penal called civil causes.

But in a constitutional view its influence, as

applied to these civil causes is at once too extensive and multifarious

to be readily estimated, and much too great to be

safely neglected.

The constitutional efficacy of Jury trial extended to Scotland, by its efficacy in England. Of this part of its influence Scotland, it may be

remarked on the other side, has never had the benefit.

Besides, that as to this, by far the most important of the benefits of Jury trial, Scotland enjoys it. But Scotland being the minor kingdom, the constitution

enjoyed in Scotland has been the constitution

formed in England: formed in the major kingdom, the

constitution of which had had the full benefit of Jury trial

in its application as well to civil as to criminal

causes

On the other hand again, this constitutional benefit —

by far the most important of the benefits which it is

in the power of Jury trial to confer and, secure — this

principal benefit, Scotland has all along possessed, and would

welcome to possess without the extension of this mode of

trial to civil causes — to any causes other than those

to which in Scotland it extends at present.
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