I don’t know that I have ever heard of a case in which a member or
members of the jury have been known to have talked to witnesses, but
I do not know, either, that there is anything to prevent any member
of the jury discussing the case at night during the progress of the
trial with a witness outside the precincts of the court. No man is
infallible, but justice ought to be. Jean Richepin put the whole case
against the French criminal trial in a nutshell when he sang “Quel
homme est assez Dieu pour rendre la Justice?” The conclusions of a
_juge d’instruction_, however capable the man may be, need not of
necessity be infallible. As he has the power to let the prisoner go,
the power to say that there is no case for the jury, it stands to
reason that, unless he states a doubt, the mere fact that he has sent
the prisoner for trial means that he believes in the prisoner’s guilt.
The judge therefore starts a trial with the conviction that the
examining magistrate thinks that the prisoner is guilty. This
conviction must influence his conduct of the case. “Quel homme est
assez Dieu pour rendre la Justice” under these conditions? Many
Frenchmen have been of the opinion for a long time that the procedure
of a French criminal trial needs reformation. Many consider that the
judge’s preliminary interrogatory of the prisoner and of the witnesses
should be entirely suppressed, and should give place to examination
and cross-examination by prosecuting counsel and the counsel for the
defence. Many people think too that the _juge d’instruction_ should be
made to justify his _dossier_ in open court and on oath, that he should
be called to justify it at the witness bar instead of the present
system of a formal reading by a clerk of the court which takes a long
time and is always so gabbled that it is merely a formality.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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