III: The Grand Jury
TWO weeks had elapsed since Mr. Farris had been held for the grand jury. He had been at liberty on bail. The girl, against whom there had been no charge, had been held, virtually a prisoner, in a home for erring women that she might be available as a witness when needed.
The grand jury was returning after lunch for the afternoon session. Something they had done the previous day had aroused the assistant State attorney's ire, so that he had felt justified in punishing their foolish temerity with two calls that day instead of one.
A little group had gathered in the front of the jury-room. They were discussing the cases passed, and speculating upon those to come. One and all were wearied with the monotony of the duty the State had imposed upon them.
"And the worst of it is," said one of the younger members of the panel, "it's all so utterly futile. When I was summoned as a grand juror I had a kind of feeling that the State had placed a great responsibility upon my shoulders, that she had honored me above other men, and placed me in a position where I might help to accomplish something really worth while for my fellow man."
One of the bank presidents laughed.
"And the reality you find to be quite different, eh?"
"Quite. I hear only one side of a great string of sordid, revolting stories, and I hear nothing more than the assistant State attorney wishes me to hear. There are momentous questions stirring the people of the city, but when we suggest that we should investigate the conditions underlying them we are told that we are not an investigating body--that those questions are none of our business unless they are brought to our attention through the regular channel of the State attorney's office. We are told that the judge who charged us to investigate these very conditions had never charged a grand jury before, and while doubtless he meant well he didn't know what he was talking about."
"I understand," said another juror, "that we will get our chance at the vice problem to-day 'through the regular channel'--the Abe Farris case is on the docket for this afternoon."
"And what will we do?" asked the young man. " We'll listen to answers to such questions as the assistant State attorney sees fit to ask, and if we start asking embarrassing questions he'll have the sergeant-at-arms hustle the witness out of the jury-room. Then we'll hem and haw, and end up by doing whatever the assistant State attorney wants us to do. We've done it on every important case--you watch."
"You are quite right, sir," spoke up a retired capitalist. "In theory the grand jury system is the bulwark of our liberty--it was, in fact, when it was instituted in the twelfth or thirteenth century, at a time when there were several hundred crimes punishable by death; but now that there are only two, murder and treason; it is a useless and wasteful relic of a dead past.
"The court that is competent to hold men to the grand jury is much more competent to indict them than is the grand jury itself. In fact, in cases where the punishment is less than death the court that now entertains the preliminary hearing might, to much better advantage to both the accused and public, pass sentence at once. It hears both sides, but all that it can do is discharge the prisoner or hold him for the grand jury. After this there is the expense of holding the prisoner in jail until his case comes to us, and then all the expensive paraphernalia of a grand jury is required to thresh over only one side of what has already been thoroughly heard before a trained and competent jurist. If we vote a true bill a third expensive trial is necessitated."
"Personally," said Ogden Secor, the foreman of the jury, "the whole thing strikes me as a farce. The grand jury, while not quite the tool of the State attorney's office, is considered by them a more or less harmless impediment to the transaction of the business of their office--a burden to be borne, but lightened in the most expeditious manner.
"I, as foreman, am a dummy; the secretary is a dummy; the sergeant-at-arms is a dummy. We look to the assistant State attorney for direction in our every move. We come from businesses in which we have never, in all probability, come in contact with criminal law, and we are expected to grasp the machinery of our new duties on a moment's notice.
"Were it purely a matter of justice to be dispensed, I have no doubt but that we might do quite as well as any court; but we are up against a very different thing from justice--at every hand we are trammeled by law."
The assistant State attorney entered the room.
"Sorry to have been late, gentlemen," he said. "Call the next case, Mr. Sergeant-at-arms," and the routine of the jury-room commenced half an hour after the appointed time, although a quorum of the grand jury had been present for thirty-five minutes.
The last case of the afternoon call was that against Abe Farris. There were only two witnesses--Officer Doarty and the girl, Maggie Lynch. Doarty had suffered a remarkable change of heart since the evening he stood in the alley back of Farris's. He was chastened in spirit. His recollection of the affair was vague. After the assistant State attorney had ceased questioning him several of the jurors asked additional information.
"What sort of person is the complaining witness, officer?" asked the banker.
Mr. Doarty looked about and grinned sheepishly. He would not have been at a loss for a word to describe her had a fellow policeman asked him this question, but this august body of dignified business men seemed to call for a special brand of denatured diction in the description of a spade.
"Oh," he said finally, "she's just like the rest of 'em down there--she's on the town."
"Would you believe her story?" asked the banker.
Doarty grinned and shrugged. "Hard to say," he replied.
"In your opinion, officer," asked the assistant State attorney, "have you any case against Farris? Could we get a conviction?"
"No, I don't think you could," answered the policeman. It was the question he had been awaiting.
"That's all, officer," said the assistant State attorney. "Just a moment, Mr. Sergeant-at-arms, before you call another witness."
"A moment, please, officer; I want to ask another question before you go," spoke up one of the jurymen.
The assistant State attorney sighed and looked bored. He had found this the most effective means of silencing jurymen.
"As I understand it, you worked this case up, am I right?" asked the juryman.
"Yes, sir."
"If you had enough evidence three weeks ago to warrant the arrest of Farris, why haven't you got enough now to insure conviction?"
Doarty looked uncomfortable. He fingered his cap, and turned an appealing look toward the assistant State attorney. That functionary came to his rescue.
"You see, Mr.--a--Smith, pardon me for interrupting," he said, "the girl swore out a warrant, and it was necessary to make the arrest. That's all, officer, you may go now."
"But," insisted Mr. Smith, "it was quite apparent from the newspaper account at the time that the girl was an unwilling complainant--that the police officer worked up the case."
In the mean time, Doarty, only too anxious to do so, had left the grand jury-room. The sergeant-at-arms stood with his hand upon the knob of the door
