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JURY
, in See also:English See also:law, a See also:body of laymen summoned and sworn (jurati) to ascertain, under the guidance of a See also:judge, the truth as to questions of fact raised in legal proceedings whether See also:civil or criminal
.
The development of the See also:system of trial by jury has been regarded as one of the greatest achievements of English See also:jurisprudence; it has even been said that the ultimate aim of the English constitution is " to get twelve See also:good men into a See also:box." l In See also:modern times the English system of trial by jury
1 I.e. the jury-box, or enclosed space in which the jurors sit in See also:court
.
has been adopted in many countries in which jury trial was not native or had been strangled or imperfectly See also:developed under See also:local conditions
.
The origin of the system in See also:England has been much investigated by lawyers and historians
.
The result of these investigations is a fairly See also:general agreement that the germ of jury trial is to be found in the Frankish See also:inquest (recognitio or inquisitio) transplanted into England by the See also:Norman See also:kings
.
The essence of this inquest was the summoning of a body of neighbours by a public officer to give See also:answer upon See also:oath (recognoscere veritatem) on some question of fact or law (See also:jus), or of mixed fact and law
.
At the outset the See also:object of the inquiry was usually to obtain See also:information for the See also:
See also:Freeman's Norman See also:Conquest (vol. v.)
.
Until the modern examination of See also:historical documents proved the contrary, the jury system, like all other institutions, was popularly regarded as the See also:work of a single legislator, and in England it has been usually assigned to See also:Alfred the See also:Great
.
This supposition is without historical See also:foundation, nor is it correct to regard the jury as " copied from this or that kindred institution to be found in this or that See also:German of Scandinavian See also:land," or brought over ready made by Hengist or by See also:
Admitting
Freeman, Norman Conquest, v, 451
.
2 This fact would account for the remarkable development of the system on English ground, as contrasted with its decay and extinction in See also:France.with Stubbs that the Norman recognition was the See also:instrument which the lawyers in England ultimately shaped into trial by jury, Freeman maintains none the less that the latter is distinctively English
.
Forsyth comes to substantially the same conclusion
.
Noting the jury germs of the Anglo-Saxon See also:period, he shows how out of those elements, which continued in full force under the Anglo-Normans, was produced at last the institution of the jury
.
" As yet it was only implied in the requirement that disputed questions should be determined by the See also:voice of sworn witnesses taken from the neighbourhood, and deposing to the truth of what they had seen or heard." The conclusions of See also:Sir F
.
See also:Pollock and F.W
.
See also:Maitland, expressed in their History of English Law, and based on a closer study, are to the same effect
.
This inquest then was a royal institution and not a survival from Anglo-Saxon law or popular See also:custom, under which See also:corn-purgation and the See also:ordeal were the accepted modes of trying issues of fact
.
The inquest by recognition, formerly an inquest of See also:office, i.e. to ascertain facts in the interests of the crown or the See also:exchequer, was gradually allowed between subjects as a mode of settling disputes of fact
.
This See also:extension began with the See also:assize' of novel disseisin, whereby the king protected by royal See also:writ and inquest of neighbours every See also:seisin of a See also:freehold
.
This was followed by the See also:grand. assize, applicable to questions affecting freehold or status
.
A See also:defendant in such an action was enabled by an enactment of See also: The See also:sheriff summoned four knights of the neighbourhood, who being sworn See also:chose the twelve lawful knights most cognisant of the facts, to determine on their oaths which had the better right to the land . If they all knew the facts and were agreed as to their See also:verdict, well and good; if some or all were ignorant, the fact was certified in court, and new knights were named, until twelve were found to be agreed . The same course was followed when the twelve were not unanimous . New knights were added until the twelve were agreed . This was called afforcing the assize . At this time the knowledge on which the jurors acted was their own See also:personal knowledge, acquired independently of the trial . " So entirely," says Forsyth, did they proceed upon their own previously formed view of the facts in dispute that they seem to have considered themselves at See also:liberty to pay no See also:attention to See also:evidence offered in court, however clearly it might disprove the See also:case which they were prepared to support." The use of recognition is prescribed by the constitutions of See also:Clarendon (u66) for cases of dispute as to See also:lay or clerical See also:tenure., See Forsyth, p . 131; Stubbs, i . 617 . This See also:procedure by the assize was confined to real actions, and while it preceded, it is not identical with the modern jury trial in civil cases, which was gradually introduced by consent of the parties and on pressure from the See also:judges . Jury trial proper differs from the grand and See also:petty assizes in that the assizes were summoned at the same time as the defendant to answer a question formulated in the writ; whereas in the See also:ordinary jury trial no See also:order for a jury could be made till the parties by their pleadings had come to an issue of fact and had put themselves on the See also:country, posuerunt se super patriam (Pollock and Maitland, i. uo–128; ii . 6oi, 615, 621) . The Grand Jury.—In Anglo-Saxon times there was an institution analogous to the grand jury in criminal cases, viz. the twelve See also:senior thegns, who, according to an See also:ordinance of See also:Ethelred II., were sworn in the See also:county court that they would accuse no See also:innocent See also:man and acquit no guilty one . The twelve thegns were a jury of presentment or See also:accusation, like the grand jury of later times, and the See also:absolute See also:guilt or innocence of those accused by them had to be determined by subsequent proceedings—by See also:compurgation or ordeal . Whether this is the actual origin of the grand jury or not, the assizes of Clarendon (1166) and See also:Northampton (1176) establish the criminal jury on a definite basis . In the See also:laws of See also:Edward the See also:Confessor and the earlier Anglo-Saxon kings are found many traces of a public See also:duty to bring offenders to See also:justice, by See also:hue and cry, or by action of the frithbork, township, See also:tithing or See also:hundred . By the assize of Clarendon it is directed that inquiry be made in each county and in each hundred by twelve lawful (legaliores) men of the hundred, and by four lawful men from each of the four vills nearest to the See also:scene of the alleged See also:crime, on oath to tell the truth if in the hundred or See also:vill there is any man accused (rettatus See also:aut publicatus) as a robber or murderer or thief; or See also:receiver of such . The assize of Northampton added See also:forgery of See also:coin or charters (falsonaria) and See also:arson . The inquiry is to be held by the justices in See also:eyre, and by the sheriffs in their county courts . On a finding on the oath aforesaid, the accused was to be taken and to go to the ordeal . By the articles of visitation of 1194, four knights are to be chosen from the county who by their oath shall choose two lawful knights of each hundred or See also:wapentake, or, if knights be wanting, See also:free and legal men, so that the twelve may answer for all matters within the hundred, including, says Stubbs, " all the pleas of the crown, the trial of malefactors and their receivers; as well as a vast amount of civil business." The See also:process thus described is now regarded as an employment of the Frankish inquest for the collection of See also:fama publica . It was alternative to the rights of a private accuser by See also:appeal, and the inquest were not exactly either accusers or witnesses, but gave voice to public repute as to the criminality of the persons whom they presented . From this form of inquest has developed the grand jury of presentment or accusation, and the See also:coroner's inquest, which See also:works partly as a grand jury as to See also:homicide cases, and partly as an inquest of office as to treasure trove, &c . The number of the grand jury is fixed by usage at not less than twelve nor more than twenty-three jurors . Unanimity is not required, but twelve must concur in the presentment or See also:indictment . This jury retains so much of its See also:ancient character that it may See also:present of its own knowledge or information, and is not tied down by rules of evidence . After a general See also:charge by the judge as to the bills of indictment on the See also:file of the court, the grand jury considers the bills in private and hears upon oath in the grand jury chamber some or all the witnesses called in support of an indictment whose names are endorsed upon the See also:bill . It does not as a See also:rule hear counsel or solicitors for the See also:prosecution, nor does it see or hear the accused or his witnesses, and it is not concerned with the nature of the See also:defence, its functions being to ascertain whether there is a prima facie case against the accused justifying his trial . If it thinks that there is such a case, the indictment is returned into court as a true bill; if it thinks that there is not, the bill is ignored and returned into court torn up or marked " no bill," or " See also:ignoramus." Inasmuch as no man can be put on trial for See also:treason or See also:felony, and few are tried for See also:misdemeanour, without the intervention of the grand jury, the latter has a See also:kind of See also:veto with respect to criminal prosecutions . The grand jurors are described in the indictment as " the jurors for our See also:lord the king." As such prosecutions in respect of indictable offences are now in almost all cases begun by a full preliminary inquiry before justices, and inasmuch as cases rarely come before a grand jury until after committal of the accused for trial, the present utility of the grand jury depends very much on the character of the justices' courts . As a See also:review of the discretion of stipendiary magistrates in committing cases for trial, the intervention of the grand jury is in most cases superfluous; and even when the committing justices are not lawyers, it is now a common See also:opinion that their views as to the existence of a case to be submitted to a jury for trial should not be over-ridden by a lay tribunal sitting in private, and in this opinion many grand jurors concur . But the abolition of the grand jury would involve great changes in criminal procedure for which See also:parliament seems to have no appetite . Forsyth thinks that the grand jury will often baffle " the attempts of malevolence " by ignoring a malicious and unfounded prosecution; but it may also defeat the ends of justice by shielding a criminal with whom it has ' See also:Blackstone puts the principle as being that no man shall be convicted except by the unanimous voice of twenty-four of his equals or neighbours—twelve on the grand, and twelve on the petty jury.strong See also:political or social sympathies . The qualification of the grand jurymen is that they should be freeholders of the county—to what amount appears to be uncertain—and they are summoned by the sheriff, or failing him by the coroner . The coroner's jury must by See also:statute (1887) consist of not more than twenty-three nor less than twelve jurors . It is summoned by the coroner to hold an inquest super visum corporis in cases of sudden or violent See also:death, and of death in prisons or lunatic asylums, and to See also:deal with treasure trove . The qualification of the coroner's jurors does not depend on the Juries Acts 1825 and 187o, and in practice they are See also:drawn from householders in the immediate vicinity of the See also:place where the inquest is held . Unanimity is not required of a coroner's jury; but twelve must concur in the verdict . If it charges anyone with See also:murder or See also:manslaughter, it is duly recorded and transmitted to a court of assize, and has the same effect as an indictment by a grand jury, i.e. it is accusatory only and is not conclusive, and is traversable, and the issue of guilt or innocence is tried by a petty jury . The Petty Jury.— The ordeal by See also:water or See also:fire was used as the final test of guilt or innocence until its abolition by See also:decree of the Lateran See also:council (1219) . On its abolition it became necessary to devise a new mode of determining guilt as distinguished from See also:ill fame as charged by the grand jury . So See also:early as 1221 accused persons had begun to put themselves on the country, or to pay to have a verdict for " good or ill "; and the trial seems to have been by calling for the opinions of the twelve men and the four townships, who may have been regarded as a second body of witnesses who could See also:traverse the opinion of the hundred jury . (See Pollock and Maitland, ii . 646.) The reference to judicium parium in Magna Carta is usually taken to refer to the jury, but it is clear that what is now known as the petty jury was not then developed in its present form . " The history of that institution is still in See also:manuscript," says Maitland . It is not at all clear that at the outset the trial by the country (in pais; in patria) was before another and different jury . The earliest instances look as if the twelve men and the four vills were the patria and had to agree . But by the time of Edward I. the accused seems to have been allowed to See also:call in a second jury . A See also:person accused by the inquest of the hundred was allowed to have the truth of the charge tried by another and different jury.2 "There is," says Forsyth, "no possibility of assigning a date to this alteration." " In the time of See also:Bracton (See also:middle of the 13th See also:century) the usual mode of determining innocence or guilt was by combat or appeal . But in most cases the appellant had the See also:option of either fighting with his adversary or putting himself on his country for trial "—the exceptions being murder by See also:secret poisoning, and certain circumstances presumed by the law to be conclusive of guilt.' But the separation must have been See also:complete by 1352, in which See also:year it was enacted " that no indictor shall be put in inquests upon deliverance of the indictees of felonies or trespass if he be challenged for that same cause by the indictee." The jurors, whatever their origin, differed from the Saxon doomsmen and the jurats of the Channel Islands in that they adjudged nothing; and from compurgators or oath-helpers in 2 The distinction between the functions of the grand jury, which presents or accuses criminals, and the petty jury, which tries them, has suggested the theory that the system of compurgation is the origin of the jury system—the first jury representing the compurgators of the accuser, the second the compurgators of the accused . 3 Forsyth, 206 . The number of the jury (twelve) is responsible for some unfounded theories of the origin of the system . This use of twelve is not confined to England, nor in England or elsewhere to judicial institutions . " Its general prevalence," says See also:Hallam (Middle Ages, ch. viii.), " shows that in searching for the origin of trial by jury we cannot rely for a moment upon any See also:analogy which the See also:mere number affords." In a See also:Guide to English Juries (1682), by a person of quality (attributed to Lord See also:Somers), the following passage occurs: " In analogy of See also:late the jury is reduced to the number of twelve, like as the prophets were twelve to foretell the truth; the apostles twelve to preach the truth; the discoverers twelve, sent into See also:Canaan to seek and See also:report the truth; and the stones twelve that the heavenly Hierusalem is built on." Lord See also:Coke indulged in similar speculations . that they were not witnesses called by a litigant to support his case (Pollock and Maitland, i . 118) . Once established, the jury of trial whether of actions or indictments developed on the same lines . But at the outset this jury differed in one material respect from the modern trial jury . The ancient trial jury certify to the truth from their knowledge of the facts, however acquired . In other words, they resemble witnesses or collectors of local evidence or See also:gossip rather than jurors . The complete withdrawal of the See also:witness character from the jury is connected by Forsyth with the ancient rules of law as to See also:proof of written See also:instruments, and a See also:peculiar mode of trial per sectam . When a See also:deed is attested by witnesses, you have a difference between the testimony of the witness, who deposes to the See also:execution of the deed, and the verdict of the jury as to the fact of execution . It has been contended with much plausibility that in such cases the attesting witnesses formed See also:part of the jury . Forsyth doubts that conclusion, although he admits that, as the jurors themselves were originally mere witnesses, there was no distinction in principle between them and the attesting witnesses, and that the attesting witnesses might be associated with the jury in the See also:discharge of the See also:function of giving a verdict . However that may be, in the reign of Edward III., although the witnesses are spoken of " as joined to the assize," they are distinguished from the jurors . The trial per sectam was used as an alternative to the assize or jury, and resembled in principle the system of compurgation . The claimant proved his case by vouching a certain number of witnesses ( secta) , who had seen the transaction in question, and the defendant rebutted the presumption thus created by vouching a larger number of witnesses on his own See also:side . In cases in which this was allowed, the jury did not interpose at all, but in course of time the practice arose of the witnesses of the secta telling their See also:story to the jury . In these two instances we have the jury as judges of the facts sharply contrasted with the witnesses who testify'to the facts; and, with the increasing use of juries and the development of rules of evidence, this was gradually established as the true principle of the system . In the reign of Henry IV. we find the judges declaring that the jury after they have been sworn should not see or take with them any other evidence than that which has been offered in open court . But the personal knowledge of the jurors was not as yet regarded as outside the evidence on which they might found a verdict, and the stress laid upon the selection of jurymen from the neighbourhood of the cause of the action shows that this See also:element was counted on, and, in fact, deemed essential to a just See also:consideration of the case . Other examples of the same theory of the duties of the jury may be found in the See also:language used by legal writers . Thus it has been said that the jury may return a verdict although no evidence at all be offered, and again, that the evidence given in court is not binding on the jury, because they are assumed from their local connexion to be sufficiently informed of the facts to give a verdict without or in opposition to the oral evidence . A See also:recorder of See also:London, temp . Edward VI., says that, " if the witnesses at a trial do not agree with the jurors, the verdict of the twelve shall be taken and the witnesses shall be rejected." Forsyth suggests as a See also:reason for the continuance of this theory that it allowed the jury an See also:escape from the See also:attaint, by which penalties might be imposed on them for delivering a false verdict iri a civil case . They could suggest that the verdict was according to the fact, though not according to the evidence . In England the trial jury (also called petty jury or traverse jury) consists of twelve jurors, except in the county court, where the number is eight . In civil but not in criminal cases the trial may by consent be by fewer than twelve jurors, and the verdict may by consent be that of the See also:majority . The rule requiring, a unanimous verdict has been variously explained . Forsyth regards the rule as intimately connected with the See also:original character of the jury as a body of witnesses, and with the conception common in primitive society that safety is to be found in the number of witnesses, rather than the character of their testimony . The old notion seems to have been that to justify an accusation, or to find a fact, twelve sworn men mustbe agreed . The afforcing of the jury, already described, marks an intermediate See also:stage in the development . Where the juries were not unanimous new jurors were added until twelve were found to be of the same opinion . From the unanimous twelve selected out of a large number to the unanimous twelve constituting the whole jury was a natural step, which, however, was not taken without hesitation . In some old cases the verdict of eleven jurors out of twelve was accepted, but it was decided in the reign of Edward III. that the verdict must be the unanimous opinion of the whole jury . Diversity of opinion was taken to imply perversity of See also:judgment, and the law sanctioned the application of the harshest methods to produce unanimity . The jurors while considering their verdict were not allowed a fire nor any refreshment, and it is said in some of the old books that, if they failed to agree, they could be put in a See also:cart and drawn after the justices to the border of the county, and then upset into a ditch . These See also:rude modes of enforcing unanimity has been softened in later practice, but in criminal cases the rule of unanimity is still absolutely fixed . In civil cases and in trials for misdemeanour, the jurors are allowed to See also:separate during adjournments and to return to their homes; in trials for treason, treason-felony and murder, the jurors, once sworn, must not separate until discharged . But by an See also:act of 1897 jurors on trials for other felonies may be allowed by the court to separate in the same way as on trials for misdemeanour . These rules do not apply to a jury which has retired to consider its verdict . During the period of retirement it is under the keeping of an officer of the court . At common law aliens were entitled to be tried by a jury de medietate linguae—See also:half Englishmen, half foreigners, not necessarily compatriots of the accused . This See also:privilege was abolished by the See also:Naturalization Act 187o; but by the Juries Act 187o aliens who have been domiciled in England or See also:Wales for ten years or upwards, if in other respects duly qualified, are liable to jury service as if they were natural-See also:born subjects (s . 8) . A jury of matrons is occasionally summoned, viz. on a writ de ventre inspiciendo, or where a See also:female condemned to death pleads pregnancy in stay of execution . The jurors are selected from the inhabitants of the county, See also:borough or other See also:area for which the court to which they are summoned is commissioned to act . In criminal cases, owing to the rules as to See also:venue and that crime is to be tried in the neighbourhood where it is committed, the mode of selection involves a certain amount of See also:independent local knowledge on the part of the jurors . Where local See also:prejudice has been aroused for or against the accused, which is likely to affect the See also:chance of a See also:fair trial, the proceedings may be removed to another See also:jurisdiction, and there are a good many offences in which by legislation the accused may be tried where he is caught, irrespective of the place where he is alleged to have broken the law . As regards civil cases, a distinction was at an early date drawn between local actions which must be tried in the See also:district in which they originated, and transitory actions which could be tried in any county . These distinctions are now of no importance, as the place of trial of a civil action is decided as a See also:matter of procedure and convenience, and regard is not necessarily paid to the place at which a wrong was done or a See also:contract broken . The qualifications for, and exemptions from, service as a petty juror are in the See also:main contained in the Juries Acts 1825 and 187o, though a number of further exemptions are added by scattered enactments . The exemptions include members of the legislature and judges, ministers of various denominations, and practising barristers and solicitors, registered medical practitioners and dentists, and officers and soldiers of the See also:regular See also:army . Persons over sixty are exempt but not disqualified . Lists of the jurors are prepared by the overseers in rural parishes and by the See also:town clerks in boroughs, and are submitted to justices for revision . When jurors are required for a civil or criminal trial they are summoned by the sheriff or, if he cannot act, by the coroner . See also:Special and Common Juries.—For the purpose of civil trials in the See also:superior courts there are two lists of jurors, special and common . The practice of selecting special jurors to try important civil cases appears to have sprung up, without legislative enactment, in the procedure of the courts . 
Forsyth says that the first statutory recognition of it is so late as 3 Geo . II. c . 25, and that in the See also:oldest book of practice in existence (See also:Powell's Attourney's See also:Academy, 1623) there is no allusion to two classes of jurymen . The acts, however, which regulate the practice allude to it as well established . The Juries Act 1870 (33 & 34 Vict. c . 77) defines the class of persons entitled and liable to serve on special juries thus: Every man whose name shall be on the jurors' book for any county, &c., and who shall be legally entitled to be called an See also:esquire, or shall be a person of higher degree, or a banker or See also:merchant, or who shall occupy a See also:house of a certain rateable value (e.g . £roo in a town of 20,000 inhabitants, I50 elsewhere), or a See also:farm of £300 or other premises at £See also:loo . A special juryman receives a See also:fee of a See also:guinea for each cause . Either party may obtain an order for a special jury, but must pay the additional expenses created thereby unless the judge certifies that it was a proper case to be so tried . For the common jury any man is qualified and liable to serve who has £10 by the year in land or tenements of freehold, See also:copyhold or customary tenure; or £20 on lands or See also:tenement held by See also:lease for twenty-one years or longer, or who being a householder is rated at £3o in the counties of London and See also:Middlesex, or £20 in any other county . A special jury cannot be ordered in cases of treason or felony, and may be ordered in cases of misdemeanour only when the trial is in the king's See also:bench See also:division of the High Court, or the civil side at assizes . See also:Challenge.—It has always been permissible for the parties to challenge the jurors summoned to consider indictments or to try cases . Both in civil and criminal cases a challenge "for cause " is allowed; in criminal cases a See also:peremptory challenge is also allowed . Challenge "for cause" may be either to the See also:array, i.e. to the whole number of jurors returned, or to the polls, i. e. to the jurors individually . A challenge to the array is either a See also:principal challenge (on the ground that the sheriff is a party to the cause, or related to one of the parties), or a challenge for favour (on the ground of circumstances implying " at least a See also:probability of See also:bias or favour in the sheriff ") . A challenge to the polls is an exception to one or more jurymen on either of the following grounds: (1) propter honoris respectum, as when a lord of parliament is summoned; (2) See also:pro See also:pier defectum, for want of qualification; (3) propter affectum, on suspicion of bias or partiality; and (4) propter delictum, when the juror has been convicted of an infamous offence . The challenge propter affectum is, like the challenge to the array, either principal challenge or " to the favour . " In England as a general rule the juror may be interrogated to show want of qualification; but in other cases the person making the challenge must prove it without questioning the juror, and the courts do not allow the protracted examination on the voir dire which precedes every cause celebre in the See also:United States . On indictments for treason the accused has a right peremptorily to challenge See also:thirty-five of the jurors on the See also:panel; in cases of felony the number is limited to twenty, and in cases of misdemeanour there is no right of peremptory challenge . The Crown has not now the right of peremptory challenge and may challenge only for cause certain (Juries Act 1825, s . 29) . In the case of felony, on the first call of the See also:list jurors objected to by the Crown are asked to stand by, and the cause of challenge need not be assigned by the Crown until the whole list has been perused or gone through, or unless there remain no longer twelve jurors See also:left to try the case, exclusive of those challenged . This arrangement practically amounts to giving the Crown the benefit of a peremptory challenge . Function of Jury.— The jurors were originally the See also:mouthpiece of local opinion on the questions submitted to them, or witnesses to fact as to such questions . They have now become the judges of fact upon the evidence laid before them . Their See also:province is strictly limited to questions of fact, and within that province they are still further restricted to matters proved by evidence in the course of the trial and in theory must not act upon their own personal knowledge and observation except sofar as it proceeds from what is called a " view " of the subject matter of the litigation . Indeed it is now well established that if a juror is acquainted with facts material to the case, he should inform the court so that he may be dismissed from the jury and called as a witness; and Lord See also:Ellenborough ruled that a judge would misdirect the jury if he told them that they might reject the evidence and go by their own knowledge . The old decantatitm assigns to judge and jury their own independent functions: Ad quaestionem legis See also:respondent judices: ad quaestionem facti juratores (Plowden, 114) . But the See also:independence of the jurors as to matters of fact was from an early time not absolute . In certain civil cases a litigant dissatisfied by the verdict could adopt the procedure by attaint, and if the attaint jury of twenty-four found that the first jury had given a false verdict, they were fined and suffered the villainous judgment . Attaints See also:fell into disuse on the introduction about 1665 of the practice of granting new trials when the jury found against the See also:weight of the evidence, or upon a wrong direction as to the law of the case . In criminal cases the courts attempted to See also:control the verdicts by fining the jurors for returning a verdict contra plenam et manifestam evidentiam . But this practice was declared illegal in Bushell's case (1670); and so far as criminal cases are concerned the independence of the jury as See also:sole judges of fact is almost absolute . If they acquit, their action cannot be reviewed nor punished, except on proof of wilful and corrupt consent to " See also:embracery " (Juries Act 1825, s . 61) . If they convict no new trial can be ordered except in the rare instances of misdemeanours tried as civil cases in the High Court . In trials for various forms of See also:libel during the 18th century, the judges restricted the See also:powers of juries by ruling that their function was limited to finding whether the libel had in fact been published, and that it was for the court to decide whether the words published constituted an offence.' By See also:Fox's Libel Act 1792 the jurors in such cases were expressly empowered to bring in a general verdict of libel or no libel, i.e. to deal with the whole question of the meaning and extent of the incriminated publication . In other words, they were given the same independence in cases of libel as in other criminal cases . This independence has in times of public excitement operated as a kind of local option against the existing law and as an aid to procuring its See also:amendment . Juries in See also:Ireland in agrarian cases often acquit in the See also:teeth of the evidence . In England the independence of the jury in criminal trials is to some extent menaced by the provisions of the Criminal Appeal Act 1907 . While the jury is in legal theory absolute as to matters of fact, it is in practice largely controlled by the judges . Not only does the judge at the trial decide as to the relevancy of the evidence tendered to the issues to be proved, and as to the admissibility of questions put to a witness, but he also advises the jury as to the logical bearing of the evidence admitted upon the matters to be found by the jury . The rules as to admissibility of evidence, largely based upon scholastic See also:logic, sometimes difficult to apply, and almost unknown in See also:continental jurisprudence, coupled with the right of an English judge to sum up the evidence (denied to See also:French judges) and to See also:express his own opinion as to its value (denied to See also: |