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He heaps question upon question; he presses him closer and closer; he scarcely gives him time to breathe; and if he finds any. resistance on his part which he cannot conquer, he becomes irritated, indignant, almost his personal enemy.

He examines the witnesses :—and each examination is followed by fresh interrogatories put to the prisoner, new falsehoods on his part, and increasing animosity on that of his judge

The procurer-general sets forth the accusation:- and here we see the cruel and unbending spirit of our ancient criminal courts exhibited in all their terrific energy. The prisoner is yet uncondemned; but already he is treated as if he were convicted of the crime imputed to him. Every insulting epithet is lavished upon him, and I have seen him sometimes addressed in terms of the most indecent contempt. Scarcely yet is there any appearance of reform in this respect, at the bar of the Royal Court of Paris. The barbarous custom is still general throughout all France; it forms a part of our judicial manners; it is transmitted from magistrate to magistrate, and degrades our national character in the eyes of strangers. The advocate for the prisoner maintains the innocence of his client. This defence presents an abuse no less dangerous and revolting. We see young lawyers who are to be admired for the mildness and simplicity of their manners, the purity and uprightness of their principles, endeavouring, in defence of crimes which are but too evident, to overshadow the most incontestable proofs with doubt, to support suppositions which are utterly destitute of probability, to establish maxims subversive of all social and moral order; to inspire groundless uneasiness in the minds of the jurors, and to take false credit to themselves for the honor of saving a villain from the punishment which he richly deserves.

Sometimes, to increase the shamefulness of these proceedings, the procurer-general replies, the advocate answers him again; each party gives way to violence, and the court becomes an actual stage, where the passions exhibit themselves without restraint, where enthusiasm is carried even to delirium, and the head of the delinquent is contended for, with a fury which revolts the spectators, and makes strangers shudder.

The president delivers a summary of the whole affair:-this summary ought to be an impartial exposition of the charges against the prisoner, and of the grounds of his defence: but is this the case? No so far from it, that we must acknowledge it is often only a repetition of all the arguments against him. The misrepresentations of his advocate sometimes render this proceeding on the part of the president unfortunately necessary; but very often the resentment which has been excited in his mind during the course of the debate, has an involuntary effect upon it, and doubtless influences

him to dwell with much more force upon the facts which favor the prosecution, than upon those which favor the prisoner. At last the jury retire to deliberate. And it is on this occasion in particular that I am astonished. Only those who have witnessed the promptitude with which the jurors in England form their opinions, can conceive how little ours are yet imbued with the spirit of the duties they have to fulfil; or can sufficiently deplore the interminable labyrinth into which they are plunged by the nature of the law itself.

Instead of confining themselves to inquire the result that the conviction has made upon their minds in the debate, they are sent into their room with a number of useless papers and written accounts, concerning the substance of the crime, the interrogations of the person accused, the act of accusation, and a series of questions relative to the offender. Burdened with all these pieces, they think themselves obliged to read them, to comment upon them, and to draw inferences from them: the acutest among them think it necessary to make distinctions and suppositions, and to surpass the lawyers themselves. Time meanwhile passes on, impressions weaken, conviction languishes, doubt takes possession of their mind, and on the most simple and evident questions, sometimes on the confession of the criminal himself, the jurors pass whole hours in useless deliberations, which end often in the most deplorable results. The difficulty of giving an opinion even on the fact itself, is but the least of their inquietudes; they next open the penal code, and endeavour to find out the punishment which ought necessarily to be the consequence of their declaration. Nourished with the fruit of this fatal tree, they become the prey of fresh anguish. Ought they, as legislators, to render themselves the instruments of barbarity? Ought they to pronounce on the guilty a punishment which appears to them out of proportion with the crime? Ought they to load their conscience with the cries of an unfortunate creature, groaning in irons which he never merited ? Ought they not rather to affirm what is not true? What choice will they dare to make between cruelty and perjury? They call to their assistance all the powers of their reason, all the sensibility of their soul; at length, compassion triumphs, humanity decides, and only the name of the jury remains. Such is the true picture of our debates; a president animated with zeal against an accused person, an attorney-general treating him before-hand as a criminal, a lawyer scandalising the audience by the developement of principles the most pernicious, a feeble and irresolute jury not daring to express their conviction, and obliged to speak against their conscience. In fact, assemblies (so overwhelmed with the length of the debates, with difficulties and fatigue, that they shock

the good sense of the judges, and inspire the juries with an unconquerable repugnance for their functions.

I know very well that I shall be told that these abuses belong only to the imperfect execution of the law, by which it is laid down, as a duty to the president, that he should remain perfectly impartial, and sum up the matter to the jurors in such a manner as to impress upon their minds the principal proofs both for and against the prisoner; that it has given no power to the procurergeneral, beyond that of developing the facts pertaining to the accusation; that by the article 311, the advocate is enjoined to say nothing contrary to his conscience; and that it has forbidden the jurors to be influenced in their decisions by any consideration of the consequences which may accrue to the prisoner from them.

But what effect can be hoped for from these barren recommendations of the legislature against the very passions which it is the cause of exciting in the magistrates, the advocates, and the jurors, by the peculiar situation in which it places them? How can it be expected that a president will be impartial, when it is particularly required of him to prove the justice of the accusation; that the procurer-general will be moderate when he is expected to show the importance of it; that an advocate will be particularly scrupulous as to using the means by which he may save the life of an unfortunate wretch, who has placed his last hope in him; or that the jurors should be able to leave all consideration of the punishment out of the question, when they know that this punishment must be the inevitable consequence of their own decision?

The evil then consists in the very organisation of the proceedings, and cannot be remedied by any other means than total alteration. But after the bad success of so many of our late innovations, who shall venture to stand forth, and say to the nation,-You have had, till now, only forms of law so barbarous that they have offered to the accused enemies, even in their judges; your tribunals have resounded only with accents of hatred, or with principles the most fatal to public morals; your jurors find their liberty of conscience enchained by the implacability of your laws, and they must either be perjured or unjust. Away then with this system of perfidy and oppression; let the interrogation of the, prisoner, the pleading of the procurer-general, and that of the advocate for the accused, be all suppressed; no longer charge the president with the establishment of hte accusation; and no longer force your jurors to betray their own consciences, by inseparably connecting the punishment of the delinquent with their declaration respecting his guilt. A thousand voices would rise from all parts, to drown that of so bold a speaker. What they would exclaim, would you deprive society of the most

effectual means of insuring the conviction of the guilty? would you deprive the guilty themselves of the right of being heard in their defence? would you grant to judges the arbitrary power of dispensing punishment? Let us however examine into the reality of these dangers. I shall not repeat what I have already remarked concerning the abuses which generally arise from interrogating the accused, and particularly when those interrogations are made afterwards a part of the evidence against him; I believe that what I have already stated will authorise me to say, that society ought to seek for proofs from other sources.

With respect to the defence which the advocate for the prisoner offers, do we not all know how far it is removed from the truth? I appeal to all those who have the least experience on this point. Without doubt it has its uses in gaining the acquittal of the prisoner, but it is precisely this consideration which ought to make us wish to suppress it. The prisoner is quite capable of explaining the circumstances which appear against him : he is fully competent to dissipate doubts, and establish his innocence: it is not in this respect that an advocate is often so useful to him: it is by the suppositions which ne knows how to make with so much art; by the objections he raises, in order to embarrass the little reason which the jurors possess, and by the terrors with which his deceitful eloquence fills their timorous souls. The real means of deciding in a criminal trial are within the reach of the most unpretending person, when he is not misled by prejudice: he has no need of help from any one to enable him to feel what is uncertain and contradictory in the depositions; his conscience and good sense dictate to him with sufficient certitude. To these grounds for security, already so extensive, if we add the power which would still remain to the prisoner of addressing to the jurors any observations which he may judge useful in his defence, the constant disposition of the latter towards an indulgence, sometimes even excessive, as well as: the additional new lights they might derive from a really impartial summary, we need not be afraid that the innocence of the prisoner should ever be unjustly endangered.

By giving up all those temptations to falsehood which are generally heaped on the head of the prisoner, and by making the attorney-general forego his pleading, (for he ought to share the same fate as the advocate for the prisoner), we shall do much more in favor of the accused, than we shall injure him by suppressing his defence; and it must be perceived that the effect of this new system would greatly soften the rigor of his situation.

It is for the sake of the prisoner that I wish to see the president. exempt from the developement of the accusation, and the interrogation of the witnesses confided to other care than his. Why not give

it up to those who are specially charged with establishing the culpability or the innocence of the accused? I mean, to the attorney-general and to the advocate for the defendant. In this manner no feeling of prejudice can find its way into the mind of the president. A passive spectator of the debate, he would become the chief juror of the affair, a juror by precedence, on account of his knowledge in criminal affairs. He should maintain order in the assembly; he should prevent them exercising against the witnesses any sort of restraint, and take care that no insult should be offered them; he should watch over any light that may be thrown on the subject, and his explanations afterwards to the jurors would then appear cool, discreet, and exempt from all kind of personal feeling. The, jurors will always feel the impossibility of giving their opinion freely, as long as punishment is the unavoidable consequence of their declaration. What impediment can the legislator then find in giving to the judges the right of mitigating it according to the circumstances of the action? Is there not some inconsistency, after being afraid of their rigor in one instance, to be again mistrustful of their indulgence in the other? In refusing them the power of lessening the punishment, will not the advantage of truth predominate finally over the unjust prejudices which are still preserved against the magistracy? The more we are desirous that the declaration of the jurors should be sincere, the more latitude we ought to leave to the judge, in the extenuation of the punishment, that the jury may have no reason to fear the drawing down any punishment on the offender that may appear too severe for his fault. It appears then necessary that the judge possess the faculty of diminishing the punishment at least two degrees, which would besides be of so great advantage, and would obviate so many inconveniences, that this faculty alone would admit of our adjourning indefinitely the revision of our penal code. Of what use are all those papers which are laid before the jurors? What use do they imagine can be derived from them? Have they not heard the witnesses, the written depositions, and all that the accused has thought proper to say in defence of himself? What would they have more? They are, or they are not convinced. I will even dare to go farther, and maintain that, in the actual state of things, there exist but very few instances where they have really need of deliberation. That they do so in England may be imagined, since the law requires them to be unanimous. It is evident then that it is but by discussing the charges and the pleas set up in defence, that in case of dissent the jurors can become united in their opinion. They very seldom however deliberate, and only when the matter in question is a capital crime. But in France, where unanimity is not required, whence arises the necessity of such lengthened discussions.

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