As things stand to-day, a thief caught in the
very act of picking a pocket in the night-time may challenge
arbitrarily the twenty most intelligent talesmen called to sit
as jurors in his case. Does such a practice make for justice?
It is even possible that the sacred bird of liberty would not
scream if eleven jurors, instead of twelve, were permitted to
convict a defendant or set him free, while the question of how
far the right of appeal in criminal cases might properly be
limited or, in default of such limitation, how far under
certain conditions it might be correspondingly extended to the
community, is by no means purely academic.* It is also
conceivable that some means might be found to do away with the
interminable technicalities which can now be interposed on
behalf of the accused to prevent trials or the infliction of
sentence after conviction.
* "Limitation of the Right of Appeal in Criminal Cases," by
Nathan A. Smythe, 17 Harvard Law Rev. 317 (1905).
Yet these considerations are of slight moment in contrast to
that most crying of all present abuses,--the domination of the
court-room by the press.
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