Jury Duty

A Book by a Lawyer for Laymen

GENTLEMEN OF THE JURY—Francis L. Wellman —Macmillan ($4.00). This volume is addressed “to the tens of thousands of men that are called each year to serve their first term in the jury box.” Its object is stated by Author Wellman to be “to acquaint jurors with the profound importance and dignity of their membership in that ancient and honorable institution of Trial by Jury; to lay before them the duties, privileges and prerogatives of a juror, to open their minds to the fallacies of human testimony, the whys and wherefores of intentional perjury, the methods by which truth can be distinguished from falsehood and exaggerations can be reduced to their proper proportions.

“A succinct impression of its contents may well be conveyed by setting forth the chapter headings and list of illustrations. The chapters are: I. A Middle-aged Merchant’s First Experience with Jury Duty; II. History of Trial by Jury; III. Witnesses; IV. Lawyers; V. Lawyers; VI. Judges; VII. Judges; VIII. The Verdict; IX. Some Suggested Remedies. The list of illustrations includes: Joseph H. Choate, Lord Justice Braxfield, Lord Mansfield (of law merchant fame), Lord Chief Justice Coleridge, William F. Howe (Abe Hummel’s partner), Scene at Trial of Carlyle W. Harris, Lord Gordon Hewart (present Lord Chief Justice of England), Lord Chief Justice Russell, Lord Chancellor Jeffreys, Trial of Sir William Armstrong, Recorder Frederick Smyth, Mr. Justice Henry A. Gildersleeve and Mr. Justice George C. Barrett. Every one of these pictures is pertinent to the reading matter wherein it is found.

“The world,” says the author, “is already too full of moral lectures and serious reformers; and while I trust my efforts may prove instructive to the uninitiated, my ambition is also to be hailed a welcome raconteur.” The public press is daily informing Mr. Wellman that this ambition has been gratified. One Heywood Broun of The New York World, in a column devoted to this book, is on record to the effect that after reading Gentleman of the Jury, he regretted for the first time that the laws of New York State exempted newspaper men from jury duty.

Mr. Wellman, in the course of 40 years of active practice, has tried more than 1,000 cases before juries. He is also deeply versed in legal bibliography. In the present volume, he has drawn with discrimination upon both his experience and his learning.

The style is vivid, almost nervous. The first chapter is the narration of a juryman in a case involving a suit for civil damages by the widow of a famed banker killed by a young lawyer, who used his beautiful wife to further his professional ambitions, only to find that she had been seduced by the famed banker; and who thereupon killed the trespasser and invoked the unwritten law. A note at the end of the chapter states that the facts were for the most part imaginary.

Significance. Many lawyers have, like Colonel Ingersoll in the Star Route Case, closed their address to the jury with the admonition that they were about to retire to a room, “where all power is powerless except your own.” Edmund Burke has said that nothing on earth so nearly approached the power of the Almighty as the power put into the hands of a juryman. Any book, therefore, which so effectively as Mr. Wellman’s awakens a citizen to his duties as a juryman, is important and destined to remain important.

Trial by Jury is an increasingly criticized institution, but because it is so inherent in the Anglo-Saxon theory of justice, it will probably never be abolished. Mr. Wellman’s thesis that it is “the personnel of our juries that makes possible the verdicts which underlie and give rise to all the adverse criticism,” is therefore a hopeful one. In “Some Suggested Remedies,” he points out that in New York State some 40 groups of intelligent citizens are exempted from jury duty and advocates repealing practically all these exemptions as the first step in obtaining better jurors. This chapter, it is submitted, is as thoughtful and practical as some of the earlier chapters are bright and reminiscent.

The Author. Francis L. Wellman is the senior partner of the firm of Wellman, Smyth & Scofield. He was an Assistant District Attorney of New York County under Dr. Lancey Nicoll (1891-94) and specialized in homicide cases. He is the author of The Art of Crossexamination and A Day In Court, both of which books are slightly more professional in their appeal than is Gentlemen of the Jury.