III. On Jurors

What are jurors? - Jurors, so called because of the oath which they furnish concerning rightly exercising the office entrusted to them, are men selected from the foremost citizens to undertake some part proper to judges. They are employed only in criminal causes, and their office is to pronounce judgment concerning the existence of the fact and the culpability of the accused; but then the judges decree the penalty according to the law. C. I. penal procedure 493 ff.; C. G. criminal instruction 337 ff.

What are the obligations of jurors? - Jurors contract the same obligations as the judges themselves, while nevertheless staying within the limits of their office. The reason is that they exercise the office of judges in great part. Yet they ought not furnish all things to which judges are held, but only pronounce concerning the existence of the fact and the culpability of the accused. C. I. penal procedure 493 ff.; C. G. criminal instruction 337 ff.

Can a juror give a vote against the accused, juridically indeed convicted, but whose innocence he knows certainly by private knowledge? - R. Negatively. The reason is that he must pronounce only concerning the existence of the fact, according to his intimate conviction, nor in any way is he bound to give the legal reason for his own sentence. C. I. penal procedure 495, 498; C. G. criminal instruction 342. Even while juridical proof of the crime stands, if someone is certain from elsewhere of the innocence of the defendant, it is altogether impossible to have an intimate conviction of the delict committed. Nevertheless a juror cannot affirm a defendant to be guilty whom he knows as such only by private knowledge, but who has by no means been juridically proved. For the defendant, as long as he is not juridically proved to be such, has a right to be absolved; but the juror acts the person of judge, not of witness, and otherwise witnesses in the case would be used uselessly, and the whole form of judgment would be useless. The private intimate conviction of a juror for condemning, and not derived from juridical proofs, is against the whole tenor of the law; for a broad way would be opened to arbitrariness, and the form of judgment would be only for a certain exterior appearance. And this is openly established from C. I. penal procedure 437; C. G. criminal instruction 312.

Nor indeed is it valid to object what was just being said, that a juror must absolve a defendant proved guilty, but innocent by his own intimate conviction. For evidently the law condemning a defendant juridically proved guilty rests upon presumption of truth; but if, on the contrary, the contrary is evident and certain, that presumption must yield to evident truth, which the juror certainly knows.

Is it lawful for jurors to render sentence in a judgment in which the tribunal does not have authority over the defendant, if namely, for example, it concerns an ecclesiastical person? - If his intervention would be altogether useless, for example, when the greater part or almost the totality of the jurors is prepared to condemn the defendant, he can abstain from intervening in such a judgment. The reason is that, on one side, no one is bound to do a useless thing; and on the other side, absence is a certain protest against the abuse of justice. In the same hypothesis he must besides abstain. The reason is that his presence would be useless, and his absence necessary, lest he cooperate in the usurpation of justice, and so that he may protest against that abuse of justice. If the juror can bring forward no cause why he should abstain from judgment, and if he is punished by civil law, he can indeed, even in the same hypothesis, intervene in the judgment, seeking the due faculty, or if this cannot be done, favoring the defendant insofar as is in him. The reason is that, since he comes compelled by necessity and has previously sought the faculty, or, in impossibility, attempts to favor the defendant as much as he can, all scandal is removed, and a sufficient protest is had against the abuse of justice. Moreover, in these circumstances of affairs, he can reasonably presume the consent of ecclesiastical authority.

If his intervention would be altogether useful for absolving an innocent person, for example, because the greater part of the jurors is known to favor justice, it seems that the natural law of charity obliges him to intervene in the judgment, so that he may assist a neighbor gravely needing help. But for impeding scandal or wonder, it suffices to seek the due faculty, or, if this cannot be done, to declare his intention, if it is not established from elsewhere, that he comes not as judge, but as patron and advocate of an innocent person. The same resolution seems also to be given in the same case, if there were an express law or censure against those who undertake the office of juror. The reason is that, since laws and censures generally are unto edification, and in particular laws and censures of this kind are for protecting ecclesiastical persons and the dignity of their state, they do not seem in such a case to wish to impede the safety of those same persons from being protected. Wherefore they then cease contrariwise.