It is to be feared that many verdicts against our fellow men are as
indiscriminate as that of the juryman in the following extract:
A lawyer once asked a man who had at various times sat on
several juries, “Who influenced you most--the lawyers, the
witnesses, or the judge?” He expected to get some useful and
interesting information from so experienced a juryman.
This was the man’s reply: “I tell yer, sir, ’ow I makes up
my mind. I’m a plain man, and a reasonin’ man, and I ain’t
influenced by anything the lawyers say, nor by what the
witnesses say--no, nor by what the judge says. I just looks at
the man in the dock, and I says, ‘If he ain’t done nothing,
why’s he there?’ And I brings ’em all in guilty.”
(1703)