Crime and Punishment in American History - Lawrence M. Friedman [251]
On Trial
Plea bargaining is the way the twentieth century has handled its routine (but serious) cases. A handful of cases still go to trial, and these tend to be the most serious, the most dramatic and sensitive cases. Men accused of murder and other heinous crimes often thought they had a better chance with a jury than with a judge—a man or woman who had heard all the excuses and was hardened, presumably, by long years on the bench. If life was at stake, why not try a jury? Who knows what might happen? In some notable cases, too, it was the prosecution that would not bargain, for one reason or another—perhaps to avoid bad publicity.
In steamy, difficult, or sensational cases, choosing a jury could be a protracted struggle; and literally hundreds of prospects might be sifted before the two sides settled down to a panel of twelve. In Williamson County, Illinois, in 1922, eight union men were put on trial for their part in the “Herrin massacre,” in which sixteen scabs were murdered. It took a full month to pick a jury.42 The juror’s lot in major cases is not a happy one; weeks or months of sitting in the courtroom listening to evidence (not always fascinating). Worst of all is sequestration—locking the jury up and treating jurors as virtual prisoners. This happens, on the whole, only in murder or capital cases. In one case in 1934, in Dedham, Massachusetts, an “unused courtroom was converted into a dormitory, and meals were eaten in a nearby restaurant.” Jurors took a bath once a week at the YMCA. Deputy sheriffs guarded them constantly, and no one was allowed to see or communicate with them.43
Once in a while, jury duty was worse than unpleasant; it was downright dangerous. Not many people have ever been happy to serve as jurors in trials of well-connected gangsters. In 1927, Harry J. (“Lefty”) Lewis was charged with murder in Cook County, Illinois. He was allegedly one of a group of union thugs who beat and choked junk men who refused to join the union. One of the junk men died after a bout of persuasion.
The trial was a sensation, not least because witnesses were told they might not live to tell the tale; the home of one witness was bombed. This was certainly not encouraging to jurors. In September 1926, over a thousand jurymen were summoned; 646 were questioned before twelve were actually selected. It took four weeks to pick the jury. Most of the men were excused because they claimed they had a fixed opinion about guilt or innocence; 163 claimed scruples against the death penalty. There were also thirty-two peremptory challenges, sixteen on each side. The trial lasted until November 18, 1927. At the trial, eight eyewitnesses testified that Lewis shot the junk man in the back while he was running away. Yet the jury, after six hours of deliberations, set Lefty Lewis free. The verdict produced “general indignation.” The jury, it was said, was not at all representative; it was the dregs left over after the long, wearying process of selection. Perhaps the jury was simply too frightened to convict.44do
Who served on juries? Sam B. Warner and Henry Cabot of Harvard Law School, writing in 1936, complained about the quality of Boston jurors. Jurors came out of lists of voters. But many professionals were excused, and others wormed their way out of duty. In federal court there seemed to be a higher class of juror; they were “more skilled occupationally than those in the state court.”46 Obviously, for Warner and