date

23 Dec r 1806 Scotch Reform To L d
23 Dec r 1806

Scotch Reform To L d Grenville

Resolut.6

Jury

Trial by Jury is Trial with Lawyers: love[?] of Juries, love[?] of Jus.

My Lord, with submission, the most unexceptionable part of the Resolution is the exception at the end of it: "except in such cases as it shall be found proper to except from this rule."

My Lord, in the mouths of the learned adorers /amators// enamorator/ of Jury Trial, it has not been /in general at least/ my fortune to observe any exceptions made: neither in favour of these cases in which they might give it if they would /might have given it, but would not,/ nor in favour of them in which they could not give it, if they would ever [...?], excepting only what is excepted, viz: the privilege of paying them their fees for it, without having it.

This latter class of cases, my Lord, is not a scanty one: Take for example, what, if the Newspaper is correct I see happened but t'other day: in one Court in the day light causes, all of them special[?] Jury causes, all sent off to arbitration - not one of them tried. Why not tried? - because in its own nature physically incapable of being tried - the Jury incapable of sitting to hear them out without separating, and so ceasing to be a Jury.

Where a suit comes to be to a certain degree complex trying it as a suit /cause/ ought to be tried, or else trying it at all becomes physically impossible, /of this description for example are a considerable part of the causes which come before an English Court of Equity./ but I will not attempt to detain your Lordship on this subject any longer if the circumstances which may conspire to place a cause in this predicament I have given a synoptic /simultaneous[?]/ view in a Table.

I won't try this cause: Do you think I will try such a cause as this? How often have I not heard this said, and said with propriety, by Lord Mansfield!
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    Is it the case of a redundancy of evidence? for the same reason that no verdict /a verdict/ can /not/ be given on that day, neither can it on any other. Is it the case of a mere deficiency? Here then the cause may be tried by a second Jury, but the labour of the first is thrown away.

    But not only in these incompressible causes which could not be concluded on /at/ the first day /hearing/ could the labours of these 12 men (or whatever else were the number) be thrown away, but so it would in all those causes in which there is really no dispute. But of these, as I have already had occasion to submitt the vast majority of causes is composed. In all these cases Jurymen are either nuisances or puppets. Puppets Jurymen are of use to lawyers: but neither puppets or nuisances are of use to justice.

    Under our over English system, certainly in a very considerable number of the causes that come on before Juries - I should expect to find the greater number - pictures or statues of Jurymen could be very advantageous substitutes to the originals. In one part of the number of these causes, there is nothing for any body to try: in another part, the Juries being there for show but not for use, the cause turning upon jargon, the lawyers settle it among themselves, leaving to the Jury nothing to do but to stare.

    (My Lord, though I have n't them for my motto[?], neither am I without my love for Juries. Were it to depend upon me I too would have Juries: but when I had them it should always in every case for use, in no case for mere show.)
  • Title: [4 Feb y 1807 Omitt or Postpone 11]
    Description: 4 Feb y 1807

    Omitt or Postpone 11

    Letter IV

    Resolut 6.7.8.9.

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    Lawyers the fondness

    4. Class the 4 th. Causes which by reason of their complexity and although the whole mass of evidence which the case furnished be fothcoming, are by reason of their complexity incapable of being gone through in the compass of a single sitting.

    In regard to causes of this description nature has rendered it strictly speaking impossible that they should be heard[?] throughout by a Jury, tried with the benefit of all the wisdom, and all the observations required by that evidence is matter of physical impossibility.

    In English proactive causes of this description, are in great numbers submitted in show and pretence to the cognizance of a Jury. What is impossible is to try the cause /do the business/. What is not possible, is - to receive the fees in pretence of trying it /received for doing it/.

    Receiving money of false pretences is in some cases felony: but these are where the receivers are weak and helpless: subject to the laws, not makers[?] of laws in pretence of being declarers.
  • Title: [22 July 1804 Procedure 2 (2]
    Description: 22 July 1804

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    Ch. Objection No Jury

    This objection calls for these observations by way of answer -

    1. Sacrificing the natural and only just mode of procedure to procedure by Jury as sacrificing /would be to sacrifice/ the end to the means. In by far the greater number of causes that come[?] actually to be decided - not to speak of the still greater number that can not be decided because prohibited by factitious[?] ruffians[?] from being commenced - Justice and the existing mode of procedure by Jury are physically incompatible. Angels could not render it in their place

    2. The cases in which Trial by Jury is either practicable with advantage or practicable upon any terms, or so much as actually practicable with advantage or any tolerable chance or colour of advantage, it is capable of being engrafted onto the Natural mode of procedure, and without preponderant inconvenience.

    3. The chief if not only circumstance by which the Trial by Jury is rendered so dear to Lawyers is that it is Trial with Lawyers. The proof is - that for one cause tried by a Jury, causes by dozens and scores not to say hndreds, are tried without a Jury - and the work being alike or more for lawyers /quantity of work for lawyers, being not less or greater/ - no fault has been ever found. This is but an argumentum ad hominum:- but in that character it is decisive.

    4. It is only on the supposition of their own untrustworthiness the trustworthiness of professional Advocates, elevated into the station of Judges - that a Jury can be of any use /in so far as Judges - Judges made such out of Advocates are not fit to be trusted/. a set of unlearned and unpracticed /unexperienced/ Judges can be of any material use. Vita Ricardi, mors[?] Roberti[?]. Ascribe to them on this occasion to the professional Judges half the virtue so liberally bestowed upon them upon others, Juries /the unprofessional ones/ are a nuisance. Another argument ad hominum - but to a lawyer rather a perplexing one.