Jury-Packing
In a letter to Lord Clarendon, John Mitchel addressed the issue of Jury Packing, and made the following observations:
(For the full text of the letter see here.)
"Why should you pack a jury against us? Remember, my lord, you belong to that liberal and truly enlightened party called 'Whigs;' it is only a 'Tory,' you know, who packs;—and remember, also, that although I deny the lawfulness of your 'law' and your law-courts altogether, and hold a trial for sedition before a packed jury in Ireland quite as constitutional a proceeding as a trial before an unpacked one, yet your lordship cannot take this view of the matter. Your case is that there is law in the land—that we have broken that law, and are to be tried by that law. Remember, therefore, all the fine things that your jurists and statesmen have said and written about the great palladium of British liberty and so forth: remember how the learned Sir William Blackstone hath delivered himself on this point;—how that 'the founders of the English laws have with excellent forecast contrived that the truth of every accusation, whether preferred in the shape of indictment, information, or appeal, should be confirmed by the unanimous suffrage of twelve of his (the accused person's) equals and neighbours, indifferently chosen, and superior to all suspicion.' A trial for 'sedition' here is a mere political voting, and as your faction (that is, the English faction,) have held the sole appointment of all the officers and clerks employed in that business, they have always been able by stealing lists, or juggling and falsifying cards, and numbers, to secure twelve men who will vote for the Castle, and find anyone guilty whom the Castle does not love..."
"...First, then, you are to suppose that the list of names has been delivered safely by the Recorder to the Sheriff, and been by him duly numbered, and the number of each name written on a separate card—that the list, in fact, the whole list, and nothing but the list, is now actually in the ballot-box, faithfully numbered to correspond with the Sheriff's book—you must suppose all this, albeit I know a rather violent supposition;—and then, in presence of the attorneys for the Crown and for the accused criminal, forty-eight cards are to be taken out of the box.
"On one side of a table stands a grave-looking elderly gentleman with the ballot-box before him; on the other side sits a second still more grave, with an open book; in the book is written, each several number, on the margin, and opposite the number the name of the juror thereby denoted. The first grave gentleman shakes the box, puts in his hand, and takes out a card, from which he reads the number—then the other grave gentleman turns to that number in the book, and pronounces the name of the juror so numbered, whose name and address are then taken down as one of the forty-eight; and this process is repeated forty-eight times... it is said—I say nothing, but it is said—that those two gentlemen know each juror just as well by his number as by his name: and so, when the first takes out a card and finds 253, for example, written on it—if he knows that 253 would vote for the people, and against the Crown, it is said he gives out (as solemn as he looks), not 253, but, say, 255, or some loyal number; and thus a safe man is put on the list. Or, if anyone is standing by, and has an opportunity of seeing the card, he cries 253, and winks, or otherwise telegraphs to this other grave gentleman. Then the onus is upon the man with the book, who has nothing to do but call out a loyal man for the disloyal number, and so you have safe voters still. They never make the mistake, these elderly gentlemen, of turning out the whole forty-eight all of the right sort there is no need: there is a margin to the extent of twelve: and so they generally leave about nine or ten dubious names amongst the forty-eight. The Crown has afterwards the right to strike off twelve peremptorily, without reason assigned, and always gets rid of the men who would vote for the people.
"Thus, my lord, your jury is safely packed, and your verdict, or rather vote, is sure. They poll to a man for the Crown."
The Spectator (an English Journal) referring to the approaching trial of John Mitchel and addressing the issue of Jury Packing thus wrote: "Ministers were bound to take that course . We see its inconvenience and risks,—the additional inflation of the notoriety-hunting men in buckram; the chances of an adverse verdict from an Irish Jury; the possible tarnish on Whig popularity." P. A. Sillard, one of Mitchel's biographers says that "In its burning hatred against the Irish the grave Spectator let out its fears of an acquittal, its fears that the jury might not be sufficiently well packed; but it might depend on Lord Clarendon that this latter all important point would not be forgotten." Freeman's Journal (an Irish Newspaper) which advocated the cause of Repeal, commenting itself on the pending trial wrote: "The bar has been absolutely gutted of all its professional worth, and every popular man has been tempted with the bribe—and all this before a single information was sworn! All the distinguished men who defended the State prisoners in '43 have been gained over to the side of the Crown. Even the junior men were sought to be drawn off from the accused, which proves the malicious littleness of the entire transaction." "The sneer about the "notoriety-hunting men" was also in English good taste, Sillard suggests commenting on the Spectator; "so accustomed are they to the like that they imagine everyone as base as themselves."
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