Twelve Good Men and Tory, by Francis Wharton

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IT is only on the hypothesis of the unconscious perversion of judicial reason by party prejudice that we can explain the fact that the selection of the jury in O’Connell’s case was sustained not only by a majority of the Irish court, but by such capable judges as Lords Lyndhurst* and Brougham* in the House of Lords.

In voting to reverse on this ground, Lords Denman, Cottenham,* and Campbell* not only obeyed a sound judicial instinct, but inflicted a fatal blow on the infamous usage, till then prevalent in Ireland, of cooking up, by irresponsible parties outside of the sheriff’s office, juries to suit particular cases. It became, therefore, settled that a challenge to array would lie in all cases in which the selection of the jury, whatever might be the agency of wrong, was not absolutely fair.

by Francis Wharton 1820-1889

abridged

Abridged from an essay in ‘The International Review’ Volume 4 (1877) by Francis Wharton (1820-1889).

* John Singleton Copley (1772-1863), 1st Baron Lyndhurst, served as Lord High Chancellor three times, in 1827-1830, 1834-1835 (from November 1834, not during the trial), and 1841-1846.

* Henry Peter Brougham (1778-1868), 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux, who served as Lord High Chancellor in 1830-1834, and was in post during the trial of Daniel O’Connell.

* Charles Christopher Pepys (1781-1851), 1st Earl of Cottenham, was twice Lord High Chancellor, in 1836-1841 and 1846-1850. In this case, Pepys is pronounced PE-pis.

* John Campbell (1779-1861), 1st Baron Campbell, a former Attorney General (1835-1841) and briefly Lord High Chancellor of Ireland (June 1841) who later served as Chief Justice of the Queen’s Bench (1846-1850) and Lord High Chancellor (1850-1859).

Précis

After Lord Denman’s intervention in the House of Lords, quashing O’Connell’s conviction, it became accepted throughout the British justice system that jury pools could not be tampered with by anyone. American lawyer Francis Wharton expressed dismay that so many learned barristers had justified jury-tampering on such a scale, and put it down to misplaced Party loyalty.

Questions for Critics

1. What is the author aiming to achieve in writing this?

2. Note any words, devices or turns of phrase that strike you. How do they help the author communicate his ideas more effectively?

3. What impression does this passage make on you? How might you put that impression into words?

Based on The English Critic (1939) by NL Clay, drawing on The New Criticism: A Lecture Delivered at Columbia University, March 9, 1910, by J. E. Spingarn, Professor of Comparative Literature in Columbia University, USA.

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