The wartime trues of the examination of witnesses or of evidence bang Intel Wore juries in England, which formed the el a total change in their ammeter, occur in the reign of Henry VI. The change was not affected suddenly, or by any particular act of perbessent, but was iotraducel by slow degree u poptilatiou increased, and the habit. and [mousers of society underwent alteration; and though distinctly dweertubie in the reign of Henry VI., was not completely Jeered before the times of Edward VI. anti Mary. In lath chapter of his work Laudibus Legum Aligner,' written at the eel of the reign of Henry N'I., and about the your 1470, expressly narentiene that witnesses were examined and sworn before the jury ; but he calls the jury incliacritninately Oates and jure/errs, and makes frequent allusions to their character as witnesses. Shortly after Forte cues time— namely, In the year 149S—there la a reported case between the Bishop of Norwich and the Earl of Kent (' Year Book, 14 Henry VILI, in which a jury had been separated by a tempest while the partite were showing their evidence ;" and one question relied for the opinion of the court was, whether, when the jury came, weedier again, they were competent to proceed with the case and to sere a venlict. The objection pressed was that the jury had separated before evidence was girter ; to which it was answered that ' the ea* the evidence was wholly immaterial, and made the matter neither letter nor worse ; that evidence was only given in order to inform the consciences of the jury respecting the rights of the parties •, but that if neither party chose to give evidence, still the jury would be bound to deliver a verdict." About the same peried,—that is, in the reign of henry V1L,—it appears from records printed in lisatelfr Entries, that demurrers to evelence were an acknowledged form of proceeding. which shows that at that time evidence of some kind was given, and consequently -that the character of the jury had been in some degree changed from that of meows to that of jedaes of facta upon testimony. The proofs reationed in these records are called eridentia ; and it is most pro bable that at first the only evidence given consisted of deeds, writings, and of depositions of aloeut witnesses taken before the justices of the peace or other magistrates, and that oral testimony was not common until a later period. The entire absence of all mention of evidence or witnesses, as eontratlistinguished from jurors, in treatises, reports, record., or statutes, previously to the 16th century, strongly corrobo rates the fact of the early character of the trial by jury. There is no trace of any rules of evidence, nor of any positive law compelling the attendance of witnesses, or punishing them for false testimony or non attendance, nor of the existence of any process against them before stat. 5 Min c. fl (1562). In the cam of Summers r. !slowly, reported in 2 Crompton and Menou, p. 455, Mr. Baron Bayley mays that he had been unable to find any precedent. of the common Ssbpran ad kaki masa of an earlier date than the reign of Elizabeth, and expresses a conjecture that this, process may have originated with the above mentioned 'statute. The Sobpana od frreigeundein doer not appear In the registers of Write and Processes until the reign of James 1. (West's ' Syrnholeography.) Witnesses were examined orally upon the trial of Sir Thomas More, in the reign of Henry VIII. ; but the reported state trial, in the reign. of Edward VI. and nary show that the practice in that respect was then by no means settled. In the reign of Elizabeth, however, there Is abundant proof, from Sir Thomas Smith's' Common wealth of England,' and other authorities, that oral testimony was used Iv It/lout reserve (except in state pre.ocutinns) both in civil and criminal trial., and oaessequestly it cannot be doubted that about the middle of the 16th unitary the trial by jury had fully assumed the character In which we are now familiar with it—namely, an institution deciding fade fee judicial purpmes by means of testimony or evideuee produced Isfore the jury.
This view of the original character and office of the jury seems to amount fur the practice of fining or otherwise punialling juries by the court when they gave an unsatisfactory verdict ; a practice which was partially continue!, though not without remonstrance by legal autle; rites, after the nature of the Institution had been changed. If juries, who were merely witnesses sent for to Inform the court of facts which they were presumed certainly to know, returned a wilfully (AIM ver dict, they were guilty of a contempt of justice, and might properly be perasehed ; but when their character was changed, and their verdict !blended net on their own knowledge of the facts, hut upon the impreedon. produced on their minds by the evidence, such it course of summary punishment became intolerable injustice ; anti though ovens eimia)ly practised hi the 16th century, was declared to he Illegal soon after the Restoration by the celebrated judgment in Ilushell's case, reported In Vanglan's Iteporta p.135.
The juries now in use in i'argland in the ordinary courts of justice are grand juries, petty or common juries, and special juries. Urand juries are reclusively incident to court. of criminal jurisdiction; their ofice la to examine into charges of crimes brought to them et waken cr tensions, and If satisfied that they are true, or at least that they deserve more particular examination, to return • bill of Indictment ebonite,' the secausel, upon which he is afterwards tried by the petty jury. A grand jury most consist of twelve at the least. In practice • greater number neurally serve, but twelve must concur in finding every Indictment. No further qualification is required for grand jurors (except in the case of grand jurors at the sessions of the peace, provided for by the recent Jury Act) than that they should be free holder*, though to what amount is uncertain ; or freemen, lawful liege subjects, and not aliens or outlaws. (Ilawkinee ' Pleas of the Crown,' chap. 25, sect. 16.) Until the end of the 13th century the only qualification required for petty or common juries, for the trial of issues in criminal or civil court., was that they should be " free and lawful men ;" freemen, as holding by free services or free burgesses in towns; and lawful men, that is, persona not outlawed, aliens, or minors, but entitled to the full privi leges of the law of England. By the statute of Westminster 2, passed in the 13th year of Edward I. (1296), it was enacted that no man should be put on juries who had not some freehold of the value of 20s. a year within the county, or 40s. without it; and this qualification was raised to 40s. in counties by the statute, 21 Edward 1, The object of these statutes was to protect poor persons from being oppressed and injured by being summoned on juries, and also to obviate, the evil of the non attendance of juror', which frequently occurred from their inability to leave their agricultural or handicraft occupations. The stat. 2 llenry V. however woe expressly intended to secure the intelligence and re sponsibility of jurors by requiring a property qualification. With this view it enacted that no person should be a juror in capital trials, nor in any real actions, or personal actions where the debt or damages declared for amounted to 40 marks, unless he had lauds of the yearly value of : and if he had not this qualification he might be challenged by either party. This oontinued to be the qualification of common jurors until the passing of the statute, 6 IV., c. 50, which repealed n11 former statutes upon this subject, and entirely remodelled the law respecting juries. By this statute " every man (with certain specified exceptions) between the ages of twenty-one years and sixty years who has within the county in which he resides 101. a year in freehold lands or rents, or 20/. a year in leaseholds for unexpired terms of at least twenty-one years, or who, being a householder, is rated to the poor rate in Middlesex ou a value of not less than of 301., and in any other county of not lean than 20/., or who occupies a house containing not less than fifteen windows, is qualified end liable to servo on juries in the superior courts at Westminster and the courts of the counties palatine for the trial of issues to be tried in the county where lie resides, and also to serve on grand juries at the sessions of the peace, and on petty juries, for the trial of issues triable at such sessions in the county in which he resider." The exceptions are :—peers, judges of the superior courts, clergymen, Roman Catholic priests, dissenting ministers following no seculsr employment but that of a schoolmaster, serjeants and barristers at law, and doctors and advocates of the civil law actually practising; attorneys, solicitors, and proctors actually practising; officers of courts actually exercising the duties of their respective offices; coroners, gaolers, and keepere of houses of correc tion ; members and licentiates of the college of physicians actually practising; surgeons, being members of one of the royal colleges of 'Burgeons in London, Edinburgh, or Dublin, and actually practising ; apothecaries certificated by the Apothecaries' Company and actually practieing ; officers in her majesty's navy or army on full pay ; pilots licensed by the Trinity House; masters of vessels in the buoy and light service ; pilots licensed by the lord-warden of the einque-ports, or under any act of parliament or charter ; household servants of the sovereign; officers of customs and excise ; sheriffs' officers, high con stables, and parish clerks.