Читать книгу A Concise History of the Common Law - Theodore F. T. Plucknett - Страница 121

A very famous case on this matter was Bushel’s Case² in 1670, where Chief Justice Vaughan in his judgment defined the position and duties of the jury. Although he retained the ancient view that a jury may depend upon its own knowledge, yet he gave a larger place to their independence. He insisted upon the ancient law; in his opinion the jury was not bound to follow the direction of the court, for the very good reason that if they returned a wrong verdict it was the jurors who were punished by attaint, and not the judge who directed it. Every jury sat with the shadow of attaint overhanging it, and this was ample sanction. Acting, therefore, under so great a peril, the jury must be left completely free from directions by the bench and from any subsequent punishment in Star Chamber or elsewhere, with the sole exception of the ancient proceeding of attaint. In other words, there was just enough of the doctrine of attaint left to enable the court to say that there was adequate means of dealing with a dishonest jury, and therefore of declaring in general terms the jury’s right to independence. The judgment of Vaughan was very ingenious in its combination of anti-quarianism and logic. Under the circumstances these were no doubt proper weapons in the defence of juries against political interference. But Vaughan knew, as well as everybody else, that for practical purposes attaint was obsolete, and that his judgment therefore amounted to a declaration of the irresponsibility of the jury. However useful this might have been in certain types of political trial, it was obvious that it worked hardship in private litigation. The courts were well aware of this, and were already at work even before Bushel’s Case in search of some means of setting aside obviously unsatisfactory verdicts.