Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 14.pdf/358

 A Kentucky Court Room. terested and amused me the most was the sheriff. That officer was a tall, raw-boned, thin-whiskered individual, who seemed, with his ubiquity and the variety of his functions to be pretty much the whole thing. He performed the duties of court clerk, jury commissioner, bailiff and amicus curiae. To him had evidently been left the business of not only summoning the venire-men, but of selecting them as well, for in filling the panel for the trial of the case he constantly consulted a pocket memorandum book in which he had apparently listed his jurors; and somewhat after the following manner would the panel be filled : "Mr. James Kennedy," the sheriff would call out in his piping, treble voice. "Present in court, suh," would come the response from Mr. Kennedy. "Come up heah, please," called the sheriff; "take yo' seat thar in the jurybox." "Mr. "Here,George suh." Canebreak." "Come up heah, please, set right down thar 'longside o' Mr. Kennedy." "Mr. HeahClay I am, Stubblefield." suh." "Come up heah, please; take yo' seat thar 'longside o' Mr. Canebrake." And so on until the panel was filled. In the course of the trial the judge interrupted the proceedings by calling out: "Better lower a couple of those back windows there, Mr. Sheriff." "Yes, suh, all right, Jedge." After lowering these windows the sheriff called back to the judge: "Think we better have 6ne open on the side heah, Jedge." "Well, don't pull it down very far." "All right, Jedge." After thus improving the hygienic condi tions of the court-room, the sheriff sidled

forward toward the bar; and now it was his turn to interrupt the proceedings. The crowd in the court-room had been surging forward and almost surrounded the jurors. "Don't crowd that jury-box that-a-way," he cried out; " take yo' seats, gentl'm'n, take yo' seats." At the beckoning of one of the attorneys in the case, the sheriff then went inside the bar, and responding to the whispered words of the attorney, pulled out his plug of to bacco, and after allowing the attorney to help himself liberally, passed on, and to my amazement went up on the judge's platform, that Holy of Holies, which with us is con sidered desecrated by any other than judi cial feet, and standing beside the judge passed a few whispered pleasantries with him, for both chuckled quietly. The sheriff remained standing behind the judge for some little time looking out on the people as sembled in the court room, ever and anon scratching his head or pulling at his billygoat beard, waiting, apparently, until some real or fancied breach of the court room pro prieties should require him to rush down and assert his authority. But let no one suppose that because of this seeming departure from conventional decorum there resulted any miscarriage of justice. Far from it. There was something so democratic in the procedure of that Ken tucky court-room, and so far removed from anything suggestive of star chamber pro ceedings, that one could not help feeling that here the people themselves were con ducting the trial, and not some tribunal over and above them receiving its sanction from a power not in touch with them nor respon sible to them. One is, therefore, ready to pardon the goddess of justice for disporting herself in such a free and easy way, being convinced that she holds the scales evenly
 * and metes out justice honestly.