COMPLAINTS ABOUT JURIES HAVE LONG LOCAL HISTORY

When the grand jury indicted Sidney resident Harvey Reader of assault with intent to commit rape, he of course hired as good a lawyer as he could afford and demanded a trial by jury. On the day of his trial, the task of selecting a jury began, with each side extolling the virtues of its case and seeking to select those thought to be most favorable. The final twelve included Milton Bennett, T.F. Wilkinson, Levi Austin and S.R. Huffman. The trial was set to begin.

Although trial by jury dates from 725 A.D., as early as during the Roman Empire, citizens were called upon to decide community disputes by rendering verdicts as a "citizen judex." The more humane trial by jury replaced trial by ordeal that was common in many cultures for centuries. Under Saxon law, for example, if you could walk barefoot over nine red-hot plowshares without your feet blistering, you were considered not guilty.

When Harvey Reader's jury found him not guilty, the reaction around town was immediate. The Shelby County Democrat even jumped into the fray with its lead editorial. "The Democrat does not often notice verdicts of juries (but) this case deserves more than passing notice." The paper went on to find the conduct of Reader "brutal and outrageous." The victim had made her escape from Reader's buggy "bruised and frightened." The paper scolded the jury for allowing "a clear case of outrage" in clearing Reader from accosting her female virtue, "the highest ornament to female character."

Criticism of the results of a jury trial in Shelby County was not new. In May of 1865, The Sidney Journal carried an anonymous letter to the editor blasting partisan politics for influencing a jury verdict. A young black man had filed suit against a township official for denying him the right to vote. His case had gone to trial twice - with the same result. The juries both times split along party lines, the Republicans voting for him and the democrats against. The letter ended with the admonition that "A juror who...disregards the law and the testimony is a dangerous man in society."

When the edition of the Democrat carrying the editorial denouncing the jury in the Reader case hit the street, the jurors who had served were furious. Six of the twelve jurors immediately composed a response to the editorial, which the Democrat printed in the following Friday's paper.

Accusing the editor of doing them a "great injustice," the jurors recounted how they had carefully considered the evidence. They took a parting shot at the editor and others who they felt were second-guessing them: "We have no objection to criticism from any one who heard all the evidence, as we did, but we object to criticism from those who only heard part or none of it, as we do not deem them competent critics."

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