JURUA 



3192 



JUSTICE 



The close of the period was marked by great 

 upheavals in the western part of North 

 America. At this time the formation of the 

 Sierras and the Klamath mountains began. 



Related Subjects. The reader is referred to 

 the following articles in these volumes: 

 Cretaceous System Mesozoic Era 



Geology (for diagram) Triassic System 



JURUA, zhoorooah', a river of Brazil rising 

 in the mountains of Peru and flowing north- 

 east to join the Amazon near Fonteboa. It 

 has a winding course of 1,200 miles through a 

 sparsely-settled region, and is navigable for 

 about one-third of its length. 



JURY AND TRIAL BY JURY. Trial by 

 jury is an institution prominent in the history 

 of Anglo-Saxon resistance to oppression. The 

 principle that a freeman cannot be deprived of 

 liberty or property except by the "lawful judg- 

 ment of his peers [equals]" was stated in the 

 Magna Charta, 1215. The English uprisings 

 against the Stuart kings and American rebel- 

 lion against George III were partly in oppo- 

 sition to unjust prosecutions by the Crown, 

 abuses against which the grand jury in particu- 

 lar is a defense. 



Grand Jury. This is probably a develop- 

 ment of an Anglo-Saxon custom by which the 

 twelve senior thanes decided whether accused 

 men should submit to the Trial by Ordeal or 

 Combat, or be freed. In principle this old 

 institution agrees with the modern grand jury, 

 of from twelve to twenty-three men, who de- 

 termine whether there is sufficient evidence 

 against an accused man to justify a trial. They 

 do not hear the defendant's story, but if 

 twelve jurors believe that the accusations are 

 possibly correct, they call them a true bill, 

 and he is indicted. As in Saxon days, the 

 jurors may rely on their own knowledge as 

 well as that of witnesses. In the British Em- 

 pire many consider that the grand jury has 

 outlived its usefulness, and in some of the 

 states of the American Union it is employed 

 only in emergencies. The grand jury is im- 

 paneled by a judge, to whom it reports on all 

 cases heard by it. 



Petit, or Petty, Jury. This, the common 

 jury, decides from the evidence presented at 

 a trial what are the facts. In a criminal case 

 it renders a verdict, guilty, not guilty, or, as 

 in Scotland, not proven. In civil cases it may 

 fix the amount of damages. The petit jury 

 consists of twelve persons. 

 The Norman conquerors of England, to gain 



probably that contained in the Domesday 

 Book), summoned the men of a neighborhood 

 to testify. From this custom,~apparently, the 

 jury developed. It was at first confined to 

 land disputes. The twelve men thought most 

 familiar with the question were summoned; 

 if their opinion differed more were called, until 

 twelve voted together. The jurymen were 

 thus witnesses as well, whereas, in modern 

 practice, a man is considered an incompetent 

 juryman if he has knowledge of the facts. The 

 number in a jury soon became fixed at twelve, 

 who must agree on the verdict. If they failed 

 they could be carted to the edge of the coun- 

 try and thrown into the ditch. To-day, on the 

 other hand, a jury must be uninfluenced in its 

 conclusions and is locked in a room until it 

 reaches its decision. The unanimous vote is 

 not required in some countries, and not always 

 in England and America, nor is twelve always 

 the number of members. 



Though there is considerable opposition to 

 the jury system, it still remains the best arm 

 of the law. The principal objections are that 

 it is too slow. At each session of court, a 

 number of men are chosen, in the manner 

 prescribed by the law of the community; from 

 these each jury is selected. Either side has a 

 limited right to challenge and reject those it 

 deems unfit, and in the United States this 

 feature is carried to extremes not permitted 

 elsewhere, with a consequent great loss of 

 time. The jury system has been adopted in 

 modified form in Belgium, France, Germany, 

 Italy and Spain. 



Coroner's Jury. This jury serves principally 

 to inquire into the causes of unusual deaths. 

 Like the grand jury, it may declare that a 

 suspected person should be held for trial for 

 murder. Six men compose it. R.E.B. 



Consult Train's The Jury System: Defects and 

 Proposed Remedies; Forsyth's Trial by Jury. 



Related Subjects. The reader is referred to 



the following articles in these volumes : 

 Battle, Trial by Law 



Coroner Magna Charta 



Courts Ordeal 



Crime Procedure 



Indictment Thane 



JUSTICE, jus'tis, DEPARTMENT OF, one of 

 the executive departments of a government, 

 although in some countries it is known by 

 other names. 



United States. When the Federal govern- 

 ment was organized in 1789, Congress pro- 



information necessary to the Crown (including vided that there should be a Federal Attorney- 



