Courts -- United States; Trial practice -- United States
"Don't you know that neighborhood; all the cars speed up whenever they
get there."
"Why, yesterday I was getting off a car and the conductor pulls the
bell, etc., etc."
"No, I ain't prejudiced against the railroad; I ain't got nothing
against the railroad."
"Of course, we ain't going to decide this case on sympathy or
prejudice. But that boy's Irish and he looks like he come of good
honest people."
"Vy, I don't see no difference whether he is Irish--or Yiddish; vot ve
vant is justice."
"Now see here, my friend, if you think you're going to make this a
racial matter you're mistaken. Just because that boy's Irish you
needn't think he ought not to get nothing. You're prejudiced, that's
what you are."
"Oh, let's get down to the evidence anyway; what we want is to
decide."
"Vel, the motorman vas Irish, vot you talking about?"
"Sure, but he had to say what he did. Didn't he have to hold down his
job with the company?"
The rest of the jury sink back resigned and despondent. They will
never get out. One of them ventures.
"The judge told us that the law was--"
He is interrupted.
"Oh, we don't care so much about the law. What we want to do is to do
what is right."
Somewhere, somehow, and by non-understandable methods the verdict is
reached. If the jury ask for further instructions, they file back into
the court-room and the judge proceeds to elucidate the hidden mystery
of the law in much the same manner he did in his charge. They return
again not satisfied, and take up the discussion.
The most dramatic moment in the trial is when the officer comes in and
announces the jury have agreed. While they slowly file in, the
prisoner or the parties watch them with soul-tearing eyes; the lawyers
with anxious expectancy. There is an electric thrill in the air. In
some mysterious manner their verdict becomes known before the foreman
speaks. Call it thought transference, mind reading, or what you will,
there is a quick understanding from their faces, their manner of
walking in, and their final pronouncement is only a confirmation of
what was expected.
The jury has spoken, the lawyer who has lost moves to set aside the
verdict. The jury looks startled. Is it possible that after all that
trial and all that deliberation the judge is going to upset it again
and have the long trouble gone over. The judge denies the motion or
takes it under advisement. Only on rare occasions does he set the
verdict aside then and there. The verdict must have been outrageous,
absurd, clearly a compromise, or absolutely and shockingly against
common sense. The theory of the law is that the verdict of a jury is a
final judgment on the facts by the best judges of the facts. It will
not lightly or for small reasons be interfered with.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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