Volume II Part 94 (1/2)
The judge declined to submit the case to the jury upon any question whatever, and directed them to render a verdict of guilty against your pet.i.tioner. Your pet.i.tioner's counsel excepted to the decision of the judge upon the legal questions, and to his direction to the jury to find a verdict of guilty, insisting that it was a direction which no court had a right to give in any criminal case.
The judge then instructed the clerk to take the verdict, and the clerk said, ”Gentlemen of the jury, hearken to your verdict as the court hath recorded it. You say you find the defendant guilty of the offense charged; so say you all.” No response whatever was made by the jury, either by word or sign. They had not consulted together in their seats or otherwise. Neither of them had spoken a word, nor had they been asked whether they had or had not agreed upon a verdict. Your pet.i.tioner's counsel then asked that the clerk be requested to poll the jury. The judge said, ”That can not be allowed. Gentlemen of the jury, you are discharged;”
and the jurors left the box. No juror spoke a word during the trial, from the time when they were empaneled to the time of their discharge. After denying a motion for a new trial, the judge proceeded upon the conviction thus obtained to pa.s.s sentence upon your pet.i.tioner, imposing upon her a fine of $100 and the costs of the prosecution.
Your pet.i.tioner respectfully submits that, in these proceedings, she has been denied the rights guaranteed by the Const.i.tution to all persons accused of crime, the right of trial by jury, and the right to have the a.s.sistance of counsel for their defense. It is a mockery to call her trial a trial by jury; and unless the a.s.sistance of counsel may be limited to the argument of legal questions, without the privilege of saying a word to the jury upon the question of the guilt or innocence in fact of the party charged, or the privilege of ascertaining from the jury whether they do or do not agree to the verdict p.r.o.nounced by the court in their name, she has been denied the a.s.sistance of counsel for her defense.
Your pet.i.tioner also respectfully insists that the decision of the judge that good faith on the part of your pet.i.tioner in offering her vote did not const.i.tute a defense, was not only a violation of the deepest and most sacred principle of the criminal law, that no one can be guilty of crime unless a criminal intent exists; but was also a palpable violation of the statute under which the conviction was had; not on the ground that good faith could, in this, or in any case, justify a criminal act, but on the ground that bad faith in voting was an indispensable ingredient in the offense with which your pet.i.tioner was charged. Any other interpretation strikes the word ”knowingly” out of the statute, the word which alone describes the essence of the offense. The statute means, as your pet.i.tioner is advised, and humbly submits, a knowledge in fact, not a knowledge falsely imputed by law to a party not possessing it in fact, as the judge in this case has held. Crimes can not, either in law or in morals, be established by judicial falsehood. If there be any crime in the case, your pet.i.tioner humbly insists it is to be found in such an adjudication.
To the decision of the judge upon the question of the right of your pet.i.tioner to vote, she makes no complaint. It was a question properly belonging to the court to decide, was fully and fairly submitted to the judge, and of his decision, whether right or wrong, your pet.i.tioner is well aware she can not here complain. But in regard to her conviction of crime, which she insists, for the reasons above given, was in violation of the principles of the common law, of common morality, of the statute under which she was charged, and of the Const.i.tution--a crime of which she was as innocent as the judge by whom she was convicted--she respectfully asks, inasmuch as the law has provided no means of reviewing the decisions of the judge, or of correcting his errors, that the fine imposed upon your pet.i.tioner be remitted, as an expression of the sense of this high tribunal that her conviction was unjust.
Dated January 12, 1874. SUSAN B. ANTHONY.
In the Senate of the United States, June 20, 1874, Mr. Edmunds submitted the following report:
_The Committee on the Judiciary, to whom was referred the bill_ (S. 391) _to enable Susan B. Anthony to pay a fine imposed upon her by the District Court for the Northern District of New York, and a pet.i.tion praying for the remission of said fine, report:_
That they are not satisfied that the action of the Court was such as represented in the pet.i.tion, and that, if it were so, the Senate could not legally take any action in the premises, and move that the Committee be discharged from the further consideration of the pet.i.tion, and that the bill be postponed indefinitely.
Mr. Carpenter asked, and obtained, leave of the Senate to present the following as the views of the minority:
_The Committee on the Judiciary, to whom was referred the memorial of_ SUSAN B. ANTHONY, _praying to be relieved from a certain judgment, rendered against her by the Circuit Court of the United States for the Northern District of New York:_
The majority of the Committee have determined that inasmuch as the relief prayed for by the memorial can not be granted, the Committee will ask to be discharged from its further consideration, and will not express any opinion as to the correctness or incorrectness of the course pursued on the trial of Miss Anthony.
The House of Lords in England or the Senate of the United States may engage in any investigation looking to legislation, although, as an incident to, or a result of, such investigation, it may appear that some officer who is impeachable has been guilty of conduct for which he might be impeached. Then, surely, in a case like this, where there is neither suggestion nor suspicion of corrupt conduct on the part of the estimable judge before whom the trial was conducted, it can not be improper for a committee of the Senate to inquire whether, in the trial of a citizen for alleged violation of the laws of the United States, a precedent dangerous to the liberties of every citizen has been set. Indeed, the injurious effect of every judicial departure from sound principle is in proportion to the eminence and purity of the judge by whom it is committed. The outrages perpetrated by Scroggs and Jeffreys in the administration of criminal justice were grievous upon the individuals unjustly or illegally convicted, but do no harm as precedents. A vicious precedent, set by an infamous judge, is harmless; while a similar violation of the law by a pure and upright magistrate is attended by far-reaching and detrimental consequences.
It is fas.h.i.+onable, we know, just now to heap contumely upon women who demand to be allowed to enjoy their civil political rights.
Ridicule is the chief weapon employed against them, and is freely applied to all who advocate their cause. Gentlemen who would blush to be thought negligent in the offices of frivolous gallantry lack the manhood to accord to women their substantial rights. And, strange to say, ladies dwelling in luxurious ease join with the fops of society to cast contempt upon the earnest aspirations of woman for the possession of her just rights. We have acted upon the doctrines of the Declaration of Independence, so far as to make all men equal before the law; but women, our mothers, our wives, our sisters, and our daughters, we condemn to inequality--many to servitude. But the cry of women, who, in poverty and want, are driven from the employments of honest industry to indulgence in vice and to the haunts of shame, is rising on every hand, and appeals to the heart with as much power as the wailings of a slave beneath the lash of his master.
The wrongs of Martin Koszta in a foreign land touched the heart of the nation. But the denial of her rights to Miss Susan B.
Anthony in a court of the Union is thought to be unworthy the attention of the American Senate. To those who are indifferent whether a woman be deprived of or be permitted to enjoy even the rights which are secured to her by the Const.i.tution, it may be suggested that a bad precedent set in the trial of a woman who has presumed to express her choice as to those who should make laws for her, laws by which her rights are to be affected and her property be taxed, may stand in the way of some man's rights hereafter. It may yet happen, in the revolutions of time, that some one of the majority of your committee may be subjected to an unjust and false accusation, which must be submitted to the judgment of twelve men in the jury-box or of one man on the bench; twelve men fresh from the people and warmed with the instinctive sympathies of humanity, or one man, separated from the people by his station and by the habits of a life pa.s.sed in seclusion and study. A jury-trial must be the same whether a man or woman be arraigned. And the subject under consideration is important even to men who are regardless of the rights of women.
I shall, therefore, proceed to inquire, as I think the committee ought to have done, whether the memorialist has been deprived, as she alleges, of the right of trial by jury secured to her by the Const.i.tution of the United States. The memorialist claims that the court erred in its ruling, and in taking the case from the jury and directing a verdict against her; and also in refusing to have the jury polled in regard to their verdict; and she prays that her fine may be remitted by act of Congress.
The first question is, whether in a criminal trial, plea not guilty, the jury have a right to render a general verdict involving questions of law as well as fact, under instructions by the court upon matters of law; or whether, when the testimony is not conflicting, the court may take the case from the jury and direct a verdict of guilty to be entered.
It is the practice in civil causes for the court, if there is no conflict in the evidence, to direct a verdict for the plaintiff or for the defendant, because in such case the court may set aside a verdict and grant a new trial in favor of plaintiff or defendant. It would, therefore, be a barren form to require the jury to deliberate and find a verdict in a case where if the verdict was not one way, the court would set it aside and order a new trial, and so on, until a verdict should be found that was satisfactory to the court. So in practice it is usual for the court to direct the jury to acquit the prisoner in a criminal case; because, if the jury find against the prisoner, the court may set the verdict aside and order a new trial, and continue to do so until a verdict of acquittal shall be rendered; though it is doubtful whether, even in a civil cause, the court could refuse to let the jury be polled, or could enter a verdict for the jury to which they did not agree. The court could direct the jury what to do, and set aside the verdict if they did otherwise; but it is not admitted that, even in a civil cause, the court could enter a verdict against the wishes of the jury.
But at the common law and in the Federal courts it is certain that where the jury render a verdict of acquittal, even against the evidence and the instructions of the court on propositions of law, the court can not set aside the verdict and order another trial. From this it follows that the court can not take from the jury this power of acquittal in a criminal case, by directing and compelling a verdict against the prisoner, and refusing to have the jury polled. But the importance of this question requires its examination not only in the light of reason, but of authority.
The Const.i.tution of the United States provides:
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and a public trial by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, etc.
The Const.i.tution does not define or regulate the trial by jury, but secures it as it was then known to the common law. This is a proposition so well settled by judicial determination that I shall spend no time upon it beyond citing the following authorities: Norval _vs._ Rice, 2 Wis., 22; May _vs._ R. R. Co., 3 Wis., 219; Byers & Davis _vs._ Com., 42 Penn. St., 89; United States _vs._ Lorenzo Dow, Taney Decis., 35; Lamb _et al._ _vs._ Lane, 4 Ohio Stat., 167.
Therefore, if it can be shown that, at the time the Const.i.tution was adopted, it was well settled that the jury in a criminal cause might find a general verdict, including both law and fact, then this right is secured to juries in the Federal courts by the Const.i.tution itself; and not even an act of Congress could take it away. What the law was at that time, is mere matter of historical inquiry, wholly different from another question, which is so often mistaken for it, whether juries ought to possess the right.
What, then, was the law upon this subject when the Const.i.tution was adopted? Mr. Hargrave, in one of his annotations upon Lord c.o.ke's first Inst.i.tute, declares that, inasmuch as the jury may, as often as they think fit, find a general verdict, it was unquestionable that they might so far decide upon the law as well as fact, such a verdict necessarily involving both.