Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 5.djvu/395

379 THE JURY AND ITS DEVELOPMENT. 379 When the criminal jury came to hear the evidence of witnesses, this method of punishing them seemed hardly less out of place that the attaint in civil cases. It could not last, but it was hard to give it up. In 1500, for refusing to convict on what was regarded as sufficient evidence, the jury were imprisoned until they gave a bond to appear before the King and Council, and were then fined eight pounds apiece, but Sir Richard Empson was afterwards punished for this. 1 The fining and imprison- ment of jurors had, indeed, been authorized by the statute 26 H. VIII. c. 4, but only in a particular place, viz., in "Wales and the Marches thereof." Certain irregularities in those parts were recited, and these punishments were authorized in case of acquittal or giving " an untrue verdict against the King, contrary to good and pregnant evidence ministered to them by persons sworn before the justices," etc. Vaughan, in Bushel's case, draws the inference from this statute that this treatment would not be legal without it, or where it did not extend. But the Star Chamber accounted it legal enough for them. " In the reigns of H. VII. H. VIII Queen Mary, and the beginning of Queen Eliza- beth's reign," says Hudson in his Treatise on the Star Chamber (s. vii.), "there was scarce one term pretermitted but some grand inquest or jury was fined for acquitting felons or murderers ; in which case lay no attaint." In Throckmorton's case, in 1554, 2 the jury acquitted the accused of treason after his vigorous and shrewd defence of himself. "The Court being dissatisfied with the verdict, committed the jury to prison. Four of them afterwards made their submission, and owned their offence . . . and were delivered ; . . . but the other eight were de- tained . . . and on the 26th of October [the trial was on April 17] were brought before the Council in the Star Chamber. The Lords, extremely offended at their behavior," sentenced the foreman and another to pay .£2,000 apiece within a fortnight, and the other six a thousand marks each, and all were sent back to prison. On December 12, five jurors were discharged on paying £,220 apiece, and nine days later the rest on paying £60 apiece. We may see how the whole matter was regarded by a sagacious and well-informed statesman, only ten or eleven years after Throck- morton's case, in Smith's Commonwealth of England (Book III. 1 Hardres, 98-9. 8 Hew. St. Tr. 869; s. c. 1 Jardine's Crim. Trials, 62.