It will be within the recollection of this House that two very terrible crimes were committed recently in this city. In one an attempt was made to murder Mr. White, a juryman, who, in a perfectly clear case, had, with his fellow-jurymen, brought in a verdict of "guilty." Fortunately in this case, though Mr. White received very serious injuries, his assailants did not achieve their full object. Unfortunately in another case, the case of Mr. Armstrong, his assailants were more successful. In cold blood they murdered this unfortunate young man. A more deliberate, more unjustifiable murder could not be committed. It remains and must remain an indelible stain on this country. It shocked and it must shock the feelings of every person in this country who fears God and who believes that the Ten Commandments are still a binding force on the consciences of men. What did Mr. White do? What was his offence? A person was charged with, on two different occasions, shooting at two different Guards, with intent to do them grievous bodily harm. The case was perfectly clear. Mr. White and his fellow-jurymen brought in the only verdict they could in conscience bring in, a verdict of guilty. For this an attempt was made to murder Mr. White, and the names of the other jurors have been circulated far and wide. Certain newspapers— disreputable I style them—have expressed their approval of these acts.
The approbation of those who consider that jurymen, that witnesses, that Civic Guards are outlaws and have no moral right to live in this country has been freely, widely expressed. What had Mr. Armstrong done? He had given evidence—im-material evidence, in fact, because without his evidence a verdict of guilty must equally have been brought in. He had given evidence against four young men charged with the larceny of a Union Jack. These men were found guilty. They were not sentenced to any term of imprisonment. They were released immediately the verdict was brought in. For this, Mr. Armstrong was murdered. It is perfectly obvious that the criminal association that does these things has its organisers —men almost indifferent as to whom they murder, provided they can get murder done. It seems these organisers have instruments to their hands willing to carry out their mandates, no matter how terrible those mandates may be. Now, these two crimes have led us to make a very close investigation into the working of the jury system in this country. We have examined the workings of that system very narrowly and we have concluded that real improvements in the jury system can be effected and for that purpose we have introduced this Bill, not as a temporary expedient, but as a permanent measure. We are altering the existing system so as to make it meet present-day requirements. In some respects, we are innovating, in other respects we are retracing our steps, but we are striving always to safeguard the lives and liberties of jurymen and witnesses and providing, as far as it is humanly possible for us to provide, that justice will be done between the people in this country and the persons who are charged with crime. We are endeavouring to see that no innocent man shall be convicted and, on the other hand, that no criminal shall escape the punishment due to his crime.
I will now go through the Bill shortly, section by section. The first section is merely interpretative and constructive. The second section gives power to transfer, in certain cases, to the county registrar, duties now imposed upon the under sheriff. No doubt, it is within the knowledge of the House that the office of under sheriff is an office which is being abolished universally in this country, that as soon as the existing under sheriffs resign their office or their office otherwise falls in, the duties now carried out by the under sheriff will be carried out by the county registrar. Section 2 enables that procedure to be expedited; without the resignation or other falling-in of the office of under sheriff, where it is deemed expedient, the county registrar will have the duty of preparing the jurors' list and summoning the jurors. The object, of course, of that is that there may be more secrecy as to the names of those who are called upon to serve upon juries. That leads me to Section 3 of the Act, which provides that the jury panel shall be a confidential, official document and that the accused person shall not be entitled as of right to a copy of the jury panel.
Here, as I mentioned a few moments ago, we are retracing our steps. We are going back to the old common law. Under the common law, down to the 17th and 18th Victoria, cap. 26, no person indicted for any offence was entitled to a copy of the jury panel. By that particular statute, an English statute passed in the time of Queen Anne was made to extend to this country, and persons tried for the crime of high treason or tried for misprision of treason were entitled to a copy of the jury panel. No other prisoners were entitled to a copy of the jury panel, and that is the existing law in England to this very day. In England, a person charged with any offence, except treason or misprision of treason, is not entitled to a copy of the jury panel. In Ireland, an alteration was made by the Juries Act, 1871, which has been practically, in effect. carried on by our Juries Act of 1927. Under those Acts, any person, whether he was connected with the case or not, was entitled for a trifling sum to obtain a copy of the panel of jurors. Everybody who lives in this country and who keeps his ears and eyes open must know how that right of the public to obtain the jury panel has been abused. Quite recently, not merely here in the City of Dublin, but also in country districts, jurors have been circularised, have been threatened, and every effort has been made to tamper with the sources of justice. That is a condition of affairs that we cannot allow to continue. Accordingly, we revert to the old principle, that the prisoner shall have his right of challenge as it exists at present, but that nobody shall have a document setting out the names of jurors. By those means, jurors will be protected, when they are summoned, from the threats and intimidation to which they are at present exposed by certain persons.
Section 4 of the Act goes on to explain how the jury shall be called. At present, under Sections 46 and 47 of the principal Act—that is the Juries Act of 1927—the names of the jurymen are called over in Court. They answer to their names in Court. Their names are marked off. They are then recalled for the special case, and are challenged or are not challenged, as the case may be. Finally, if they are not challenged or stood-by, they are sworn. That goes on until the full jury of twelve has been empanelled. Now, under the new procedure, it will be open to a juryman, if he wishes, to go in before the county registrar and have his name mentioned to the county registrar.
The county registrar will then tick off his name upon the list. The panel of those who have not availed themselves of that method will then be called over in court, but while it is being called over in court there will be nobody present except the other jurymen and certain persons whose names are set out in sub-section C. The only other persons in court will be the officers of the court, Guards on duty in the court, and, if he wishes, the presiding Judge. From that time onward, that is when the public are admitted, the jurymen will be called by their numbers and only by their numbers. In that fashion, we trust that we have provided that the names of jurymen who are sworn and empanelled to try the issue between the people of this State and the prisoner at the bar will be unknown to those persons who are actuated by criminal designs against the lives of jurymen. In Section 5 we introduce a new but, I will submit to the House, a very sound principle. That is the principle that henceforth there shall not be required either for conviction or for acquittal a unanimous verdict of twelve jurymen. Under the provisions of this Bill, a majority of nine jurymen will be sufficient to secure acquittal or conviction, as the case may be. It is not very easy to know precisely when the principle of a unanimous jury came into English law. Juries were originally not persons empanelled to try facts. They were neighbours who were collected together to try the guilt or innocence of a person upon the local knowledge that they themselves possessed. A long time ago the system was changed and the juries became the judges of the guilt or innocence of the person charged before them, not on their inherent knowledge, but on the evidence sworn before them. The principle of a unanimous finding of a jury is a principle which is only to be found in the English law. It exists in no law in the world except in British law, and in those codes of law which are founded on English law. When I said British law, I should have said, of course, English law, because in Scotland, for example, a majority verdict is quite sufficient. In France, Germany and all other countries in which a jury system has been adopted for the trial of prisoners, a majority verdict is sufficient. In old Roman law, as far as they had jurors at all, they were rather professional jurors, and a majority verdict of those was deemed sufficient. Later on, in the glorious days of Roman jurisprudence, the age of Justinian, jurors were swept away altogether.
At the present time, we have to consider what jury system is suited to this country and we have come to the conclusion that a majority verdict is more suited to the needs of this country. A prisoner may be indicted, the case may be clear against him, one juryman or two jurymen may hold out and repeated trials have to take place. On the other hand, a man may be indicted, the evidence against him may be weak, nine, ten or eleven jurymen may wish for his acquittal and yet one man can stand out. If there is a real doubt in the case in the minds of the jury, then they still can disagree—that is, if they are divided in a proportion different from nine to three, they can still disagree. But it seems to me so clear that, even if there were no historical argument behind it, common sense would demand that a majority would be sufficient to determine the question of guilt or innocence. Section 6 in sub-section (1) abrogates a certain method of trial of a certain issue which used to exist in this country. If a person, on being indicted, did not plead either guilty or not guilty, a jury was empanelled to try whether he was mute of malice or by the act of God. At one time, if a man was found mute of malice by a jury, he was condemned to suffer peine forte jure, that is to say, he was pressed down until his torturers forced him to say "guilty" or "not guilty," or death came. That system of peine forte et jure has long since been done away with, but when a man is found mute of malice a plea of "not guilty" is entered on his behalf.
The question as to whether a man is mute of malice or mute by the act of God is always a very simple one to determine. There never can be any real doubt about it. Accordingly, we have left it to the judge to decide as to whether a man is mute of malice or mute by the act of God. It might, indeed, be argued, that it is unnecessary to have this provision at all, that if a man is mute in the dock that there and then a verdict of "not guilty" should be entered on his behalf, and the trial proceeded with. But there is a possibility that somebody not mute of malice, but mute by the act of God might be indicted and the court might not know that fact. He may not have the proper interpreter there to explain to him the procedure taking place and the nature of the evidence that was being given against him. In a case like that, somebody who knows the deaf and dumb alphabet or who has been used to conversing with the prisoner is always sworn as an interpreter. There has been in this country a disposition on the part of certain persons to hold themselves out openly as above the law and to refuse to recognise the courts which have been set up under the authority of the people of the Irish Free State.
There are certain other persons who, when in court, behave themselves in a manner unbecoming to the dignity of the court, and in consequence we have introduced here a provision that if a person at any stage of his trial, by any act or omission, displays gross disrespect of the court, or refuses to recognise the court, or refuses to recognise the authority or jurisdiction of the court, or does any act (other than standing mute or lawfully objecting in due form of law to the jurisdiction of the court to try him on such charge) which in the opinion of the judge is equivalent to a refusal to recognise the court, or the authority or jurisdiction thereof, or in any other way acts disrespectfully or contumaciously towards the court, such person shall be guilty of an offence against the court and the judge shall forthwith sentence him to suffer a term of imprisonment not exceeding six months. Sub-section (4) of that section goes on to say that the trial may either proceed, in the discretion of the judge, or a sentence imposed by the judge of not greater than six months shall take effect there and then.
Section 7 deals with the clearing of the court in certain cases. It might not be much good to have the name of the jurymen concealed if any number of persons could come into court and some of them possibly recognise some of the jurymen and then be in the position to give information to those persons who approve of or carry out the murders of jurymen and witnesses. Accordingly, this provision has been brought in: When "an officer of the Gárda Síochána not below the rank of supérintendent states on oath to the judge presiding at such trial that in the opinion of such officer it is necessary for the protection of the witnesses and jurors concerned in such trial that the public should be excluded from the court during such trial, the judge shall order the court to be cleared and shall not proceed with such trial until the court has been cleared in accordance with this section." But though the court is cleared and the general public excluded, yet persons who are bona fide representatives of bona fide newspapers will be allowed admission to the court and can take notes of what happens in the court and keep the public thoroughly informed of the procedure and what has taken place in the court.
Section 8 enables the judge, if he is satisfied that an attempt is being made to interfere with jurors, or an attempt to intimidate jurors, or that a proper and fair trial of a prisoner will not take place, to adjourn the trial of that prisoner, and he can so adjourn it again if circumstances have not changed for the better in the meantime. He may adjourn or not adjourn just as he thinks right. Section 9 prohibits the publication of the names of jurymen, and makes it an offence to disclose or to state, truly or untruly, that a man served upon any particular jury. Section 10 regulates the methods by which jurymen can be served—that is to say, they can be served by ordinary, and not necessarily, by registered post.
Section 11 makes it an offence for any person who prints, publishes, distributes, sells, or offers or exposes for sale, or posts up or otherwise exposes in any public place, or imports into Saorstát Eireann any statement, notice, article, or other matter in writing, or any book, newspaper, magazine, journal, or other document containing any statement, notice, article or other matter urging, encouraging or exhorting or calculated to induce or persuade persons summoned or engaged as jurors for or in the trial of criminal issues or of any particular class of criminal issues or any particular criminal issue to refrain from acting as such jurors or to act as such jurors otherwise than in accordance with their oath and duty as such jurors. Sub-sections (b) and (c) deal with persons who endeavour to intimidate jurors and provide the appropriate penalty.
Section 12 provides the penalty for any person who, during the course of criminal proceedings, loiters in the vicinity of a courthouse where the proceedings are going on. That again is to provide that this particular association, who are endeavouring by intimidation and murder to prevent jurymen carrying out their duties, will not be able by posting their touts round the courthouse to follow jurymen.
I have gone through the provisions of this Bill. It has been framed to protect jurymen and witnesses and to improve generally the administration of criminal justice in this country. I hope that these ends which we have before our eyes are ends for the achievement of which we shall have the support of all persons in this House. It is my hope that jurors and witnesses will know that the whole State is behind them when they discharge their duties. Before I sit down I want to say this: If this Bill does not prove to be effective, if it does not succeed in safeguarding the lives of our people, and if it does not achieve a fair and impartial administration of the law, then we will adopt other methods of gaining these ends. Trial by jury, as amended by this Bill, is I believe the very best method of obtaining the impartial administration of the criminal law. Trial by jury in normal times, and under normal circumstances, is the best of all systems— of that I am perfectly convinced. But trial by jury is only a means to an end; it is not an end in itself. If, after the passage of this Bill, it fails, reluctantly—regretful that such a situation should arise—but unhesitatingly we shall adopt some other method, while the need lasts, for a certain class of criminal. We are determined that the criminal will not be allowed to dominate this country, and that the efforts of no body of men will be successful in turning existing order into disorder and terminating the reign of law which, happily, is now established amongst us.
