|
DELEGATE E. C. MURRAY: What is
the duty of a criminal juror? Is is not to
adjudge the criminal guilt of his fellow
man in the light of the time and place of
the criminal act?
The attitude toward a given act in one
part of the State may vary considerably
from another, and the attitude today may
vary tremendously from the attitude
twenty, thirty, or forty years ago when
the law was enacted. It permits the juror
to judge his fellow man as he would ex-
pect to be judged.
When our ancestors embodied this pro-
tection for themselves in our Constitution
of 1851, they obviously believed it to be
wise. Today we have a very different
precedent in the action of the Supreme
Court of the United States who today base
their judgments not solely upon the word-
ing of the law, but with regard to chang-
ing times.
DELEGATE JAMES (presiding) : You
have thirty seconds, Delegate Murray.
DELEGATE E. C. MURRAY: Thank
you.
Can you imagine our Supreme Court to-
day rendering the same decisions on the
same wording as did Chief Judge Taney,
who sits with his back to us to avoid em-
barrassment, I am told?
Thank you very much, and fellow dele-
gates, thank you very much for allowing
me the additional time.
I recognize that this does violence to the
specific tenets of many, many learned jur-
ists but I submit that if you take this out,
you will be taking something away from
the citizens of Maryland.
DELEGATE JAMES (presiding) : The
Chair recognizes in the gallery H. H. Walker
Lewis, the author of THE LIFE OF ROGER
B. TANEY. He might take offense at that
remark.
Is there anyone who wishes to speak for
the amendment?
Delegate Byrnes?
DELEGATE BYRNES: Yes, Mr. Chair-
man.
I would just like to remind the Commit-
tee of the Whole that very recently we
adopted a committee recommendation, that
we had an equal protection clause in our
own constitution and I would think the
intent of the protection clause should be
the minimum, that all laws of the State
|
apply equally to all men of the State and
I would think this is the intention of this
amendment.
I would suggest that you adopt it.
DELEGATE JAMES (presiding) : Does
anyone wish to speak against the amend-
ment?
Delegate Weidemeyer.
DELEGATE WEIDEMEYER: Mr. Pres-
ident, I would like to state briefly that I
am opposed to the amendment. This matter
has been before the lawyers for several
years and it has been argued pro and con
and some of the lawyers who were op-
posed to this in our Constitution have been
down before the legislature trying to get
them to pass a constitutional amendment
to take it out. But the majority have al-
ways prevailed, I think, and we have left
it in our Constitution.
It has been in there over a hundred
years, and I think it is well. It is only a
few rare occasions like this that I hear
the theoreticians say we should take it out.
I was glad to hear what Delegate Willo-
ner said because he practiced law on both
sides, as a prosecuting attorney and as a
defense attorney. I was equally glad to
hear what Delegates Dorsey and Anderson
said.
Not only have they handled this matter
from the prosecution attorney standpoint,
they have handled it and operated under it
as defense attorneys and both of them have
had vast experience on the bench. So from
many angles they have seen that this is a
good workable provision and should be left
in the Constitution, and I hope this amend-
ment fails.
DELEGATE JAMES (presiding) : Dele-
gate Storm, do you wish to be recognized?
DELEGATE STORM: I was going to
give a little homily example of how this
works justice.
DELEGATE JAMES (presiding) : You
are against the amendment?
DELEGATE STORM: Yes.
DELEGATE JAMES (presiding) : Does
anyone wish to speak in favor of the
amendment?
DELEGATE BARRICK: Mr. Chairman,
I have had a lot of misgivings about this
particular subject matter. I was a state's
attorney and came down here in 1959 to
introduce a bill in the Senate to take this
|
