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the tribune stouffvilie ont thursday july 17 1947 the sign of quality gentlemen of the jury by horace brown this is the third of live articles published in saturday night by horance brown rerating his ex perience and observations of the jury system while a member of the and labor where i had seen many a member of the bench in my news paper days explode over trifles for instance i went to sleep one day in judge morsons court not a difficult feat only to be awakened by the thunder of that peppery gentleman urging a startled constable to wake hat man up a fact gleefully caret 2000 rods of 8line even space fence hog fence poultry fence poultry fence jury pane at the spring assizes ofjicled in a fiva paper mr justice the supreme court of ontario held j roach waited with unfailing court esy for what the poor girt had to sayu here she was rattled by some i i at whitby in 1944 the charge was rae the accus- v led was a curlvheaded wellbuilt i hom c he would young man in his early twenties rephrase it 36 high 48 high 60 high barbed wire etc stouffvilie coop phone 269 port ikrrv 75 vkars old years however that is not im- port perry will soon be 75 years portant it is what the town or corn- old and grows lovelier every year munity stands for today that counts so runs a statement in the port port perry is celebrating its 75th perry star if that observation birthday on august 2 3 1 with spe- made by our friend editor sam cial entertainment for the friends farmer is correct we hasten to who return to their native town for add that the scugog town must the occasion to organize such an have been an awful place to start event indicates that the people in with having regard for the yearly control there today have at least improvement with the march of 75 some initiative with a vacant frightened face the accuser was a girl of eighteen who was still in entrance class in public school for the better part of the day we of the jury had been listening to the thread of evidence leading to their sordid centre where the spider of conviction worked to entrap the struggling fly in our hands was a mans life for rape is theoretically at least a capital charge there were twelve of usmost of us never before met sworn to judge the facts and render a verdict ac cording to the best of our abilities a manager of a lumber firm a war- worker an electrian a laborer some farmers myself an author xo women for in this enlightened land women are accorded the privilege of sitting on juries but the privilege is withering away for lack of exercise the case was painful in the ex- treme in that both prisoner and complainant were obviously morons while the prisoners astute counsel did not place him in the box we had his statement to the police finally admitted to the jury after consider able argument during which we sat in the doghouse twiddling ou thumbs and it was a masterly de lineation of a lowgrade intelligence tile complainant who looked like a little girl of twelve often took as long as thirty seconds to frame an answer to a question and was saved from complete mental collapse by the kindness and patience of the pre siding judge mrjustice roach who had yet to learn that undoubted emi nence as a jurist and as a man does imes until her sliav mind gathered its import then he would smile at her sweetly and thank her it was an exhibition of fact we of the jury did not lightly forget nor were we unimpressed by the unfail ing courtesy of crown attorney annis and defence counsel frost towards the witness 1 shudder to think what would have been our feeling had defence counsel been one of the browbeat ing type of attorney he undoubted ly would have prejudiced the jury to the detriment of his client in fact during that whole assizes 1 can recall only one attorney who lashed opposing witnesses and while the case was settled outof court before it came to us we were although trying to keep our minds clear hostile to that lawyer from the beginning we did not mind aggressiveness we did object to ex hibitionism a win j fallon late ornament of the xew york bar would have received short shrift with us on the other hand i have seen my father make juries cry and courtrooms rock with laughter for lie was definitely the actor type of lawyer so i suppose a great deal depends upon the time the place and the circumstances as the case dragged on towards the close of day and the shadows lengthened in the courtroom our thoughts during the pauses in testi mony concerned themselves with warm homes and hot meals there is no task i have ever undertakeneveii writing that is more physically and mentally wearing than sitting on a intensely fatiguing we more than once remarked during the assizes that we felt sorry for those juries that sit on celebrated murder cases often for weeks without letup 1 feel that jurors on these eases at least should be paid a minimum of ten dollars a day plus expenses the present four dollars is an en tire inadequate compensation and many who would make good jurors have themselves excused one way and another because they cannot stand the economic loss attendant upon these long trials while jud ges and court officials are not over paid they would not work for th wage of a juror our thoughts of the armchair and the evening newspaper were polite ly assailed by mr justice roach who turned to us about recesstime and informed us that owing to the serious nature of the charge we were to remain together for the night that accommodation had been secured for us in the local hotel and that he hoped we would be comfortable ami happy knowing smalltown hotels the bench was surely jesting he continued that we were to communicate with no one that two officers were to be assign ed to guard us to see that no one had communication with us and that if we wanted to notify our fam ilies we would not be home we would please give the sheriff the names and telephone numbers ing the evidence judging the facts sifting the chaff from the wheat there was one thing the trial clear ly revealedan ugly state of affairs existed in the villages of pickering and ajax a cancer of delinquency to be excised if at all possible there was no recreation for the young and impressionablenheir meetingplaces were cafes with a consequent con tinual seeking after excitement- their elders were infferent or ignor ant or both within four walls of the court- 1 room was proof of the tiny step the i human race has taken towards lis civilization send friends the tribune to absent ud4 fwt grocer m dalys tea daly owikphk tea gilson oil burner jury the extreme concentration not necessarily qualify one as an that is required if a juror is to dis- arbiter of disputes between capital charge his duties conscientiously is it was a bombshell to the jury men as i have remarked before juries should be informed before hand of all eventualities and made aware of court routine we consult ed rapidly amongst ourselves and then our spokesman the mill man ager whom we later made our fore man asked the court if we could not go in a body to the local theatre his lordship assented it was just as well none of us had yet seen the doublebill or there would have been a murder charge to add to the list two of the men it developed later did not feel like going but when they were informed by the officers in charge of us that if they did not go we would all have to stay with them they decided dis cretion was indeed the better part of valor another anomaly was that we had to pay our own way in oh generous generous state the officers were sworn and we duly came to have a very special i affection for bob and ron they were swell fellows and made what could have been a very difficult time passable accommodation at the hotel was strictly on the limited sidealthough comfortable enough we had to double up art banks and i were the only dunbartonites so we slept together xow if this were only a mixed jury 1 said to art but he was already asleep xot that we went to bed early after the movies the obliging bob and ron took us into a cafe where we had our fourth meal of the day by that time we were all of us as conglomerate a mixture of humanity as you ever saw firm friends i started a poker game but it wasnt too successful because i rapidly cleaned out what spare cash there was in the parlor we had been al lotted upstairs i even took some dough from bob but evened it up by buying a round of beer ft was still the day when you could order beer delivered to your room the good fellowship that existed is per haps best demonstrated this way there were two or three nonbeer drinkers and nongamblers who were intensely religious they toler ated our beer and poker and we joined them in a prayer before go ing to bed thats possibly a re cipe for the un it may be wrongly assumed from the foregoing that our minds were on the frivolous it would be more correct to say that the frivolous was indulged in order to keep us from dwelling on the serious the evidence was not all in even if we were and we did not want to in fluence each other by remarks on incomplete and insufficient author ity if our jury is any criterion no just citizen need have fear of suf fering at a jurys hands it was my experience of all the juries on which 1 have had the privilege of serving that they would lean over back wards in giving any accused that to which he or she is entitled the bene fit of the doubt i make no claim as to the perfection of the jury sys tem it is enough to say that with all its human imperfection and pre judices it cait be quite safely trust ed with criminal and civic actions even where the charge is a political one i would rather trust a jury than for instance those magis trates who believe that justice should err on the side of their cm- plovers ue discussed the case fully of course from all angles as far as it i had been presented but it is worthy j of note that not once in those three- days and uvo nights for which we jwere together did any of us offer a single clue as to our halfinformed j ideas of guilty or xot guilty j the case was a long and confuting one- it rested as do all such cases i j mainly upon the degree of consent j there was no doubt the act had taken place was it with consent ail through the lengthy trial our minds probed here and there weigh- economist you can get prompt installa tion by placing orders now for this proven heating unit in your home see e j stickley victoria square phone 7513 mayfair restaurant monday thru friday 8 am 11 pm saturday 8 am 12 pm sunday 10 am 8 pm stouffvilie sand gravel limited are prepared to supply your requirements of crushed gra vel sand concrete gravel pit run delivered or at the bin plant phone 5820 office phone 370 spray painting expert workmanship free estimates given jack lcary gormley ont ph stouff 6321 50sept 31 stouffvilie floral roses wedding bouquets funeral designs cut flowers milt smith prop