Vol. 30, No. 2 #6 (April 2007). Perspectives on the Jury System.

• Author: By Richard H. Honaker

Wyoming Bar Journal

2007.

Vol. 30, No. 2 #6 (April 2007).

Perspectives on the Jury System

WYOMING LAWYER Vol. 30, No. 2 (April 2007) Perspectives on the Jury System By Richard H. Honaker

Edward Bushel, Thomas Veer, Charles Milson, Gregory Walklet, John Bailey, John Hammond, Henry Henley, William Lever, James Damask, Henry Michel, Wil Plumsted, and John Brightman. Twelve men mostly forgotten over the course of history. Twelve men who knew their rights, who loved liberty, and who refused to compromise their consciences. Twelve brave jurors. In London in 1670, two Quakers-William Mead and William Penn-faced imprisonment for the crime of preaching to an illegal assembly on a city street. The assembly allegedly was "illegal" because it was a non-Anglican assembly. After hearing the evidence, the jury returned a verdict of not guilty, finding that Penn and Mead had spoken on a city street, but not to an illegal assembly. The verdict was utterly unsatisfactory to the trial judge. "You had as good said nothing," he charged, and ordered the jury confined to "the hole" in Newgate Prison, and its foreman, Edward Bushel, held without food or water until a "proper verdict" was rendered.

Brought back before the court, the jury again returned a not guilty verdict. The judge exploded: "You shall be locked up without meat, drink, fire, and tobacco. You shall not think thus to abuse the court; we will have a verdict, by the help of God, or you shall starve for it.andquot;

When, for the third time, these 12 brave jurors returned a not guilty verdict, the judge threatened to cut the foreman's throat if he would not return "a positive verdict," and sent the jury back into "the hole"-this time without the decency of providing them a chamber pot.

Over the course of four days in September 1670, this jury returned yet a fourth time, and then a fifth, but never shrinking from the verdict it believed was right. Finally, the judge imposed a fine of 40 shillings on each juror, and also on Mead and Penn (for not removing their hats in the courtroom), and imprisoned them all until the fines were paid.

Edward Bushel refused to pay his fine, but was released on a writ of habeas corpus in a decision issued by the Lord Chief Justice of London, Sir John Vaughn, that henceforth established the independence and security of English jurors.

Shortly afterward...