important statute for consolidating and simplifying the jury laws, viz. the 6th Geo. IV. cap. 50. See sec. ii.

A bill of indictment being laid before the grand jury, it is their particular province to determine whether it is a true bill, (in order, that if so, it may be brought before a petty jury for final adjudication,) or to reject it, in toto. Two indictments for the same offence, as one for the felony, under a statute, and the other for the misdemeanour, at common law, ought not to be preferred at the same time.

The witnesses in support of the charge are to be called in and examined by the grand jury, or, with the consent of the grand jury, by the prosecutor. The prosecutor may be represented by attorney, who will examine the witnesses.

The witnesses must be examined on oath; and the indictment may be found upon the oath of one witness only, except for high treason, which requires two witnesses, and except in cases in which it is otherwise directed by a special Act of Parliament.

The defendant is not allowed counsel or attorney, or any person skilled in the law, as an advocate; the investigation of the grand jury not being conclusive.

The evidence which a grand jury may require should be the same, whether written or parol, (that is, by word of mouth,) as may be necessary to support the indictment at the trial. If the grand jury should find the bill upon improper evidence at first, if the prisoner be afterwards tried on legal and sufficiént testimony, the conviction CANNOT be interfered with.

Grand jurors are, by the terms of their oaths, bound not to disclose what transpires during the investiga

tion; and if they do so, they are finable. Any person who may be present on the occasion is laid under the same obligation; and any individual present in court, though not "subpoenaed," may, on a criminal prosecution, be compelled to answer questions.

The evidence having been considered, if twelve of the grand jury deem the charge sufficiently proved, their clerk indorses on the indictment "A true bill;" if otherwise, "No true bill."

The grand jury may not find part of the indictment true, and part false; but must find either a true bill, or ignoramus for the whole; and if they find it true for part only, the whole is void, and the party cannot be tried upon it, but must be indicted anew.*

Where there are two counts in the indictment, as one for a riot and another for an assault, the bill may be rejected as to one count and affirmed as to the other. And where a bill is presented for murder, the grand jury, according to Mr. Baron Garrow, (at the Staffordshire summer assizes, 1822,) in Rex v. Caulkin, may find a true bill for manslaughter only.

A PETTY JURY, consisting of twelve, after a true bill has been found by the grand jury, are to try the truth of the fact the prisoner stands accused of, and to find him guilty or not guilty. It is the especial duty of a petty jury to try the truth of some matter of fact alleged by one party and denied by another. Hence a petty jury is called on to decide, not only in cases where "bills of indictment" have been previously found true by a grand jury, as for murder and the like, but

* 2 Hawkins, c. 25, s. 2.

+ Rex v. Fieldhouse.

also to determine between man and man in civil actions, as for trespass, trover, questions of debt, &c.*

SPECIAL JURIES are said to have originated in trials at LAW in which the cases were deemed of too great nicety for the adjudication of ordinary jurors, or where the sheriff was suspected of partiality in making his return of the persons called on to serve.

Upon motion in court, "a special jury" is allowed either to the plaintiff or defendant in the trial of any cause, civil or criminal, treason and felony excepted.

* Trial by twelve judges was introduced into Denmark by Regninus, as early as A.D. 820; and an account of that institution is to be found in the works of Olaus Wormius. They adjudicated on all cases, and it does not appear that their verdict required unanimity of opinion. The ancient Norman law bore a close similarity to the Danish. Our Saxon monarchs did not punish even their bondsmen with imprisonment for debt. Alfred displaced and (lex talionis) imprisoned one of his judges for daring so to do; and hanged Judge Cadwine, because he condemned one Hackwy to death on a verdict obtained by his dismissing three dissentients, and replacing them by three others nominated by himself. During the reigns of Norman William (who swore, on his coronation, to observe the laws of Edward the Confessor, on which Magna Charta was founded), Rufus, and Hen. I. and II., no man was imprisoned, even for a mortal crime, unless first attainted on the verdict of twelve men. A man could not be kept in prison for a nonbailable offence until the justices in eyre came, but under the writ de Otio et Atia, the sheriff was directed to relieve him. The Myrror of Justice, cap. v. sec. 1, complains of the imprisonment of men's persons as an abuse, though for breaking gaol. Glanville, cap. iii., holds the same doctrine; and as this last authority is supposed to have been written before the promulgation of Magna Charta, his opinion corroborates the affirmation of Coke, that Magna Charta is but" declaratory of the ancient common law." The commencement of the charter sworn to by William the Conqueror, on his coronation, was drawn up by a council of the kingdom, in accordance with the existing laws of Edward the Confessor, and is thus: "Volumus etiam ac firmiter præcipimus et concedimus ut omnes liberi homines totius monarchiæ regni nostri." It is certain, that traces of trial by jury are to be found in Scotland as early as David I., 1124.

The party who demands such special jury, however, must pay the additional fees and expenses, unless the judge certify" on THE RECORD that the cause required adjudication of a special jury.*

PARTICULAR INQUEST JURIES are of various kinds; as that of the CORONER, whose duty it is, when a man is slain, to inquire by whom and by what means his death was actually produced; and INQUESTS OF OFFICE taken before the Sheriff, as on an action in which the plaintiff is to recover damages only, if the defendant tacitly admit the fact charged by his silence. In this case the court sends a writ to the sheriff to inquire by the oath of twelve men at least what damage the plaintiff has sustained.†

As it respects the Coroner's jury, upon inquests taken before him; the power of summoning jurors is

* It seems, that we are not indebted to the barons of Runnymede for the origin of that immortal right, a trial by jury, but for renewing the ancient laws, and, as it were, re-establishing the freedom of their country; which had, from the "remotest antiquity, been free nation." Many of our ancient statutes, incidentally shew the high veneration in which that charter was held, which was thirty-three times confirmed, and "upon which," the learned Coke says, in his second Institute, "as out of a root, many fruitful branches of the laws of England have sprung." In our own age, when it was deemed necessary to have a perfect copy of the statutes of the kingdom published, it was not thought either safe or dig. nified to copy Magna Charta, even from the roll Inspeximus of 28th of Edward I.; and a commission was appointed to visit all the universities, archbishops, bishops, and archives of the united kingdom for an original of Magna Charta in particular, and for all other statutes and legal documents. Mr. Annesley, attached to that commission, discovered in Lincoln Cathedral one copy of Magna Charta coeval with John. At the same period, the Sententia Excommunicationis against the breakers of the great Charter was found in Wells Cathedral.

† Cro. Car. 414. 6 Mod. 43. Cath. 362. 1 Veru. 113.

given to the coroner, who is to issue his precept to the constables of the four, five, or six next townships, to return a competent number of good and lawful men of their townships to appear before him, at a certain place to be named, to make inquisition, &c. (4 Edward I. stat. 2.) Or, the coroner may send his precept to the constable of the hundred.*

It is now the usual practice to summon the jury from the neighbourhood.†

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By the 8th Hen. VI. cap. xix. it is enacted, that the inquiry shall be made by persons having lands of the yearly value of forty shillings;" but it is not now the practice to return a jury having such qualifications.

By the late Jury Act (6 Geo. IV. c. 50, sec. 52,) it is specially provided, that "persons required to serve as jurors on inquests taken before a coroner by virtue of his office, need not be qualified according to the Act, but that such inquests may be taken by jurors of the same description as usual before the passing of such Act.‡

*Wood's Institutes, book iv. cap. 1.

+ 2 Hawkins, cap. ix. sec. 22, and other authorities.

LORD CAMPBELL ON CORONER'S INQUESTS.-He is charged with murder only by the coroner's inquest, on which, technically speaking, he may be lawfully tried and convicted, but which I must use the freedom to say in no degree rebuts the presumption of innocence. For the deliberate verdict of twelve Englishmen on their oaths, after listening to a sound exposition of the law, I have the most unfeigned respect; but for the inquest of a coroner's jury in a case of sudden death I have no respect at all. The constable gets together whom he can first find, no qualification being required in the jurymen. They meet amidst the fumes of an alehouse. Whatever rumours have been spread in the neighbourhood respect-ing the fate of the deceased and the supposed murderer, they have heard; and the more horrible and improbable such rumours are,