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the case that I could not get instructions
from a judge. Therefore, I intend to vote
against this because I think it handicaps
a person who is not a lawyer.
THE PRESIDENT: Delegate Moser.
DELEGATE MOSER: Mr. President, I
know that the non-lawyers and the lawyers
among us are all rather tired of hearing
arguments over and over again on this
particular subject. I rise, however, to speak
against reinserting this provision in the
constitution, and I have just three points
to make.
In the first place, it simply is not true
that a judge can direct a verdict of guilty
in Maryland, if the juries-as-judges-of-the-
law provision goes out. I call the attention
of the Convention to section 1.07 on pages
2 and 3 of the R&P provision that you have
in front of you, "Rights of Accused".
One of those rights, reading on page 3,
lines 2 to 5, is to have a speedy and public
trial by an impartial jury of 12 without
whose unanimous consent he shall not be
adjudged guilty.
This is a rather more stringent provision
than the Sixth Amendment to the United
States Constitution and I think goes fur-
ther than it does. I think this more clearly
than the Sixth Amendment would prohibit
a directed verdict of guilty in a criminal
case. I think under the Sixth Amendment
this would also be prohibited, notwith-
standing the arguments of Delegate
Willoner.
Point two is that the so-called blackjack
verdict which Delegate Willoner alludes to,
would violate this provision guaranteeing
a jury trial. It would also probably violate
the due process clause.
Another point, which I think Delegate
Smith made is the argument that it is
necessary to put this provision in in order
to allow the jury to ignore the judge's in-
structions. This is not true. A criminal
jury can find an accused not guilty notwith-
standing the judge's instructions.
The final point is that all of the other
jurisdictions in this country, with the pos-
sible exception of Indiana, have found no
problem without this provision in the con-
stitution. I hope that we keep it out.
THE PRESIDENT: Delegate Dukes.
DELEGATE DUKES: I do not believe
I have anything to say about the provision,
but I think it is extremely important.
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In the first place, Delegate Moser pointed
out other provisions of the constitution
which he maintains would prevent the prob-
lem many of us fear. The only require-
ment -that requires a unanimous verdict has
to be within that sphere dedicated to the
jury. The jury is entitled to have its unani-
mous verdict in the area of finding of fact.
I think the delegate is dead wrong that
you cannot have directed verdicts: you
have them in the federal courts every day,
every week, or every month, and there are
a number of annotations, all sorts of cases
on it. There is no question in my mind
whatsoever that you do have a directed
verdict of guilty in the federal courts, and
you do have it in some other states.
As to whether or not other states have
a problem is not really our concern at this
point. Other states have developed their
own body of law, time by time, week by
week, year by year. We are talking now
about changing the status in Maryland and
putting in this provision without any his-
tory whatever, without any body of deci-
sions in Maryland.
I do not know whether or not the Mary-
land law would develop if this provision
were left out so that we would not have
the problems that many of us fear. I also
do not know that it would not. I think
there is a very good chance that we would
follow the federal courts, and if we do we
will have exactly the problem many of us
fear that is, the type of thing where you
have a directed verdict, where you have
juries told what they can do and cannot
do, and where you even have verdicts set
aside notwithstanding the verdict when
they come back, which is also done in the
federal courts.
I do not know what to tell you, because
you will get a lot of information here;
you will get different opinions. You have a
number of lawyers who stand up and say
there is no problem, others stand up and
say it is a problem, and obviously you can-
not make a decision based on what we are
telling you.
Therefore, all I can suggest is that if it
is not any problem, if the juries are getting
along all right as they are and if we are
not having any trouble as we are not now,
then I do not see any reason whatsoever to
change what we have.
The word "archaic" means more than
old. A Bible is old, lots of things are old.
That does not mean they are out of date
or do not work very well. There is no point
in changing just because somebody tells
you it is archaic. Wait until you hear some-
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