Controlling Jury Composition in Ninetenth Century Ireland
The Journal of Legal History, Vol. 30, No. 3, p. 227, 2009
36 Pages Posted: 22 Jan 2011
Date Written: December 1, 2009
Abstract
Difficulties in securing convictions in nineteenth-century Ireland led the authorities to resort to various methods of ensuring that petty juries delivered guilty verdicts in cases where this was clearly warranted by the evidence. This article examines some of these ‘stratagems’ put and suggests a number of other practices which were used, arguing that many of these mechanisms centred around controlling the composition of trial juries. Examples included altering the property qualifications for jurors, the system of asking jurors to ‘stand by’, and the use of fines to compel attendance. While some of these were the legitimate exercise of established procedures, it will be seen that the Crown on occasion abused or over-used its powers.
Keywords: Jury, Ireland, Prosecutions, Criminal Justice, Jury Composition, Legal History, Jury Challenges
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