date

[094-287v] 4 Feb y 1807 Letter
[094-287v]

4 Feb y 1807

Letter

[...?] 6.7.8.9 Juries

I come now to distribute out lots the aggregate number of causes whatever it may be that the country my be expected to afford, classing them with a view to their aptitude for being subjected to this mode of judicature /decision/ in the first instance.

1. In the first class come undisputed causes: if these would /are and[?]/ under every system be comprized a vast majority of the whole number of causes commenced out of every 100, say │ │.

In all these instances Jury trial is compleatly useless: there being nothing for the Jury to do.

But being useless, it is a great deal more than being useless.

1. Factitious and useless delay, vexation and expence to the parties. And note, that though of the delay vexation and expence with which Jury trial is under the existing system circumstanced, by far the greater part is factitious and consequently removable, yet of each there is no inconsiderable part that is natural and unremovable.

2. Vexation to the Jurors. [...?] the Judge by whom they are to be directed /permanent official under whose direction they are to be placed/, here are 12 men whose time is occupied to no purpose whose time and with it their means of livelyhood is forced from them to no purpose. Superstition alone it is [...?] blind superstition, can cling to /[...?] for/ this large number as indispensable: as being of the [...?] of the institution: but reduce it to its [...?] here will always be a considerable number of heads of families on whom this burthen is and would be to be imposed: a burthen by no means light, even in a town: proportionably living[?] in the country and that as in so large a proportion of the territory of Scotland a thinly peopled one.
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  • Title: [094-279v] 24 Jan y 1807 C3]
    Description: 094-279v]

    24 Jan y 1807

    C3 Lett

    [...?]6.7.8.9. Juries

    There are some causes a great deal too short, too simple for Juries. I do not mean that the time they occupy /in/ at the trial that is in the collection of evidence is too short for the end[?] of judicature, but that the cause being capable of receiving its decision at the very first making (between the parties on which occasion the presence of a Jury could not be made to answer its useful purpose, the effect of submitting it to a Jury is the production of so much factitious delay, vexation and expence, without any other advantage in respect of security against misdecision, then what will be found to attach in a superior degree to the case [...?] it is only in the way of Appeal that the cause is refound[?] to this species of judicature.

    In this predicament stand the vast majority of causes: viz.: even of the causes that under the established systematical denial of justice actually taken place; much more of the bar /bars/ by which the great majority of the people are excluded from the protection of the law in civil cases were removed.

    That the causes thus circumstanced form a vast majority may be seen by an observation made /in the instance/ of the proportionable number of causes that come before /cognizable by/ the English Courts of Conscience, a number that altogether out of the reach of calculation: without rationing those which come under the cognizance of Justices of the Peace, sitting out of General Session - a multitude altogether out of the reach of calculation.

     Follow the proofs.
  • Title: [9 June 1808 On Disadvantages]
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    On Disadvantages

    . 1. 6 Disadvantage - Burthensomeness

    to the Jurors of the institution to the persons obliged to serve

    as Jurors

    When the extent to in which this

    inconvenience of in respect of the number of persons that

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    burthened is considered, this in Scotland a country to

    which the burthen is new will be found of itself so

    great, that the body of advantage

    in other shapes must be great indeed, to to

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    deemed, sufficient.

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    multitude of Judges to do the work of one: and

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    quicker by the one than it can be done by the multitude.

    Without being in reality [of the

    essence] it is

    in England through the influence of prejudice and superstition

    regarded as being of the essence of the institution, that the number

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  • Title: [Evidence 1 July 1805 Introd]
    Description: Evidence

    1 July 1805

    Introd

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    . Jury

    In /civil/ causes called civil under the existing system it continually happens that the At present the operations /inquiry/ that should have been compleated in one sitting, requires two or more constituting in effect so many distinct and distinct causes, one or other party having been unprepared and in some way or other taken by surprise. Whence this surprise? For want want of those previous explanations which in the summary mode could not but have taken place, taken place at the very first meeting.

    Trial by Jury is unavoidably encumbered with an expense from which summary procedure is free. The Jury might in all instances as already they do in most instances, be made to give their expense and labour gratis. But by an arrangement of this sort the burthen so far from being annihilated is increased. It is [...?] /made to pass secretly and severely/ upon a few instead of being laid as by equal taxation it would be laid equally upon the whole community, and thus rendered nearly imperceptible.

    At any rate upon the plan here proposed, the burthen of Jury service, wheresoever is reduced to the least quantity - to which being so laid respectively, it is in its nature to be reduced.

    From the [...?] number of O[?] number /so frequently laid upon the/ twelve, and the almost constant employment of this number for definitive trials for all trials but the useless preparatory one before the Grand Jury, one would think there were some unequal virtue in the number. Were the spell ever to be dissolved, that, in many instances at least, it might then appear, for every real purpose of justice, a number considerably less inferior might serve.