Reports Of State Trials 1839 To 1843

Excerpt from Reports of State Trials, Vol. 4: 1839 to 1843 This volume contains reports of Trials between the years 1839 and 1843. On the completion of the third volume of the series Mr. John Macdonell resigned the editorship, and Mr. John E. P. Wallis was appointed to succeed him. Mr. Macdonell was at the same time appointed a member of the State Trials Committee. To this volume applies the remark made in the Prefaces to earlier volumes: The Committee are in no way responsible for the statements contained in any of the cases; and they were not, in their Choice of trials to be printed in full, guided by any opinion which they might entertain as to the conclusions arrived at by either judge or jury on any occasion. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

From Simon & Schuster, Knowing Right From Wrong is Richard Moran's look at the insanity defense of Daniel McNaughtan. In this examination of the precedent-setting case, Moran looks through an enlightened humanitarian lens of judgments passed on mentally ill defendants by judges and juries as a result of political climate and considerations.

Thirty years after it was first published, the issues raised in The Jury and the Defense of Insanity remain pertinent. Rita James Simon examines how motivated and competent juries are, how well jurors understand and follow judges' instructions, their understand-ing of expert testimony, and the extent to which their own backgrounds and experiences influence their decisions. Simon provides a rare opportunity to observe how jurors go about the process of deliberating and reaching a verdict by following them into the jury room and recording their deliberations. This pathbreaking study of jury room behavior provides compelling evidence of the effectiveness of our trial by jury system. The Jury and the Defense of Insanity was the product of an experimental study con-ducted as part of the University of Chicago Jury Project. Over 1,000 jurors were chosen to participate, not as volunteers, but as part of their regular jury duty, in two experimental trials, one on a charge of housebreaking, the other of incest. In each the insanity de-fense was raised. Court judges instructed the jurors to consider the recorded trials they were about to hear with all the care and seriousness they would give to a real criminal prosecution, and the taped recordings of their deliberations make it clear that they did just that. These recordings, along with responses to detailed questionnaires, yielded significant data, equally applicable to civil as to criminal cases. We learn their reactions to their fellow jurors; personal evaluations of the quality and effectiveness of delibera-tions; the degree to which religion, sex, social status, education, and like factors affect participation in and influence on the course of the deliberation; and the recounting of and reliance upon personal experience in seeking to reach a verdict, among other in-sights furnished by this study. This is an exact recordnot a description or recollected accountof the struggle of a jury to weigh evidence and achieve a just verdict. For lawyers whose job it is to win civil and criminal cases, for behavioral scientists who study male and female reactions in their cultural environment to the circumstances that confront them, and to all who are interested in how people behave and why, in a dramatic, socially significant situation, this is a fascinating and revealing book.