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Updated: June 7, 2025
"The gentlemen of the jury," said the Judge, with official gravity, "will please keep order and attend only to the speeches of counsel. Any discussion HERE is irregular and premature, and must be reserved for the jury-room after they have retired." The foreman of the jury struggled to his feet.
Then they retired to the jury-room a big, desolate place, wherein was a long, ink-spattered table surrounded by wooden armchairs and spittoons. The grand jurors seated themselves, and were solemnly silent while John Paige, the state's attorney, began the dull task of presenting cases. Mr. Peaslee found that he had nothing brilliant to say.
It is obvious, as I said, from the length of time occupied in the jury-room, that the evidence in your case was sifted closely, and canvassed with the ability and experience of able and honest men. In the verdict they have returned the Court perfectly concurs; and it now only remains for me to pass upon you that awful sentence of the law which is due to your cruel life and flagitious crimes.
He forgets that when they are in the jury-room, with locked doors and no one to disturb them, they are going to do exactly as they are inclined. Prejudice and sympathy are for unintelligent people who do not know what they are about.
Men despise dull opposition that is without reason. In a jury-room, of all places, a man is expected to give a reason for the faith that is in him if one is demanded. It will not do to say, "I cannot agree." Jurors have been known to fight. Bitter antagonisms lasting for years have been generated in these close quarters.
The man prosecuted by a woman, provided she cannot be persuaded to withdraw the charge against him, is likely to get but cold consideration for his side of the story and short shrift in the jury-room. Turn about, if he can get a young and attractive woman to swear to his alibi or good reputation the honest masculine citizen whom he has defrauded may very likely have to whistle for his revenge.
"When Keithley fell in the court-house yard, and while the rifle smoke was still curling from a jury-room window, I rushed into the place and I found this boy there. He was wiping gun grease from his hands, and he testified that he had heard the shot while passing and had come in to detect the assassin. Of course, he was the murderer. He has other crimes of the same type to his damnable discredit.
Men in a jury-room, like those scientifically demonstrated atoms of a crystal which scientists and philosophers love to speculate upon, like finally to arrange themselves into an orderly and artistic whole, to present a compact, intellectual front, to be whatever they have set out to be, properly and rightly a compact, sensible jury.
The four deacons and the two dominies were sworn in as the "chance" jurymen, and six inveterate old seven-up professors were chosen to represent the "science" side of the issue. They retired to the jury-room. And still the packed audience waited, for it was a prodigious occasion in Bull's Corners, and one in which every father of a family was necessarily interested.
Sturgis was on his feet in a second. "Impanel a jury of six of each, Luck versus Science. Give them candles and a couple of decks of cards. Send them into the jury-room, and just abide by the result!" There was no disputing the fairness of the proposition.
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