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merely details the twelve-man jury right in
the constitution and makes it a constitu-
tional guarantee.
All of the reasons given yesterday by that
outstanding conservative Delegate Clinton
Bamberger in support of the twelve-man
criminal jury, I submit to you are appli-
cable, indeed very applicable to civil juries.
To the arguments that the jury trial
slows down justice, I submit if you curtail
juries you would be eroding the very justice
that you wish to secure. If speed in regard
to trials is your only concern, I submit it
would take just as long. You would not
save five minutes if you tried a case in
front of a six-man jury or if you tried a
case in front of a twelve-man jury. It would
still require opening statements; it would
still require instructions by the judge to
the jury; and it would still require closing
arguments.
Let me point out to you what this amend-
ment does not do. For those of you who
are concerned about the possibility of hav-
ing jury trials on the District Court level,
let me say that there may or may not be
jury trials on the District Court level, re-
gardless of what we do with this amend-
ment. This does not guarantee that there
be jury trials on the District Court level,
but it does provide that if the legislature
should adopt jury trials on the District
Court level that the legislature in its wis-
dom may reduce that number to six.
I point out that this amendment is not
reducing the number of jurors on the Su-
preme Court level, whereas the majority
report does in fact open that opportunity.
I have appeared before this Committee on
several occasions and I have urged many,
many amendments. I wanted to tell you that
it is my opinion that for years, insurance
companies, their representatives, and lobby-
ists have been attempting to eliminate jury
trials in civil cases. I am sure that you will
agree with me that this is an undemocratic
principle and you can imagine the blow
that this would cause jurisprudence in the
State of Maryland.
For all the reasons given, I urge you to
adopt this amendment.
THE CHAIRMAN: Does any delegate
desire to speak in opposition?
Delegate Kiefer.
DELEGATE KIEFER: Mr. Chairman,
ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I have
to rise in opposition to this amendment, and
I urge the rejection for this reason: There
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was nothing sinister in what the Committee
on Personal Rights did in this matter.
There was no attempt by the Committee on
Personal Rights to limit or in any way hold
the jury system in civil cases. We specifi-
cally made no reference to, and are not
relating this provision to the district court
or to any other court. All we did was to
provide that jury cases in civil matters
shall be available to all, depending upon the
jurisdiction amount to be set by the legisla-
ture because obviously any fixed amount
could become out of date in any given period
of time. We thought that there would be
cases and situations where the legislature
might uniformly want to establish a jury
of less than twelve. It could well be in a
district case. It might not be at all. I would
much prefer personally for you simply, if
you want a jury of twelve in civil cases, to
say twelve and let it g-o at that.
I would oppose this kind of language. It
simply confuses the issue. We had no refer-
ence to any particular set of courts. I think
it is not helpful.
I would, therefore, urge that you reject
this amendment, and if you want to increase
and make firm the number of jurors in civil
cases, just say twelve and let it go at that.
THE CHAIRMAN: Does any other dele-
gate desire to speak in favor of the amend-
ment?
Delegate Marvin Smith.
DELEGATE M. SMITH: Mr. Chairman, I
thought the amendment was rather clear. I
think there were some of us who have looked
forward to the possibility that in the Dis-
trict Court there might be juries of six to
dispose of some matters that perhaps are
not worthy of going1 all the way to the
Superior Court, but I believe that in the
matters of substance that it is contemplated
that the Superior Court will handle, we
should have the guarantee of a twelve-man
jury, and this is what this amendment pro-
vides.
THE CHAIRMAN: Does any other dele-
gate desire to speak in opposition to the
amendment?
Delegate Child.
DELEGATE CHILD: Mr. Chairman, I do
not want to take up very much time. I
merely was on the subcommittee with Dele-
gate Weidemeyer when we wrote this pro-
vision.
None of us knows at this date, and we
possibly will not know for a year, what the
jurisdiction of the District Court will be.
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