VICTIONS ACQUITTALS CONVICTIONS ACQUITTALS
BY VERDICT BY VERDICT PER CENT PER CENT

1901........551...........344..........62............38
1902........419...........349..........55............45
1903........485...........307..........61............39
1904........495...........357..........58............42
1905........489...........299..........62............38
1906........464...........246..........65............35
1907........582...........264..........68............32
1908........649...........301..........62............38
1909........463...........235..........66............34
1910........649...........325..........66............34

After a rather long experience as a prosecutor, in which he conducted
many hundreds of criminal cases, the writer believes that the ordinary
New York City jury finds a correct general verdict four times out of
five. As to talesmen in other localities he has no knowledge or reliable
information. It seems hardly possible, however, that juries in
other parts of the United States could be more heterogeneous or less
intelligent than those before which he formed his conclusions. Of
course, jury judgments are sometimes flagrantly wrong. But there are
many verdicts popularly regarded as examples of lawlessness which, if
examined calmly and solely from the point of view of the evidence, would
be found to be the reasonable acts of honest and intelligent juries.

For example, the acquittal of Thaw upon the ground of insanity is
usually spoken of as an illustration of sentimentality on the part of
jurymen, and of their willingness to be swayed by their emotions where
a woman is involved. But few clearer cases of insanity have been
established in a court of justice. The district attorney's own experts
had pronounced the defendant a hopeless paranoiac; the prosecutor had,
at a previous trial, openly declared the same to be his own opinion; and
the evidence was convincing. At the time it was rendered, the verdict
was accepted as a foregone conclusion. To-day the case is commonly
cited as proof of the gullibility of juries and of the impossibility of
convicting a rich man of a crime.

There will always be some persons who think that every defendant should
be convicted and feel aggrieved if he is turned out by the jury. Yet
they entirely forget, in their displeasure at the acquittal of a man
whom they instinctively "know