as jurors in his case. Does such a practice make for justice?
It is even possible that the sacred bird of liberty would not
scream if eleven jurors, instead of twelve, were permitted to
convict a defendant or set him free, while the question of how
far the right of appeal in criminal cases might properly be
limited or, in default of such limitation, how far under
certain conditions it might be correspondingly extended to the
community, is by no means purely academic.* It is also
conceivable that some means might be found to do away with the
interminable technicalities which can now be interposed on
behalf of the accused to prevent trials or the infliction of
sentence after conviction.


* "Limitation of the Right of Appeal in Criminal Cases," by
Nathan A. Smythe, 17 Harvard Law Rev. 317 (1905).


Yet these considerations are of slight moment in contrast to
that most crying of all present abuses,--the domination of the
court-room by the press.* It is no fiction to say that in
many cases the actual trial is conducted in the columns of
yellow journals and the defendant acquitted or convicted
purely in accordance with an "editorial policy." Judges,
jurors, and attorneys are caricatured and flouted. There is
no evidence, how ever incompetent, improper, or prejudicial to
either side, excluded by the judge in a court of criminal
justice, that is not deliberately thrust under the noses of
the jury in flaring letters of red or purple the moment they
leave the court-room. The judge may charge one way in