Note 237 — TRANSPORTATION (continued 5)

The idea of employing the prisoners as jurors, will not appear more strange than as witnesses, except that it is unusual:—

"These may appear singular proposals, and I readily admit that the absolute rights of prisoner jurors, and thereby their power of directly controlling the course of justice, might, without impropriety, be for a time somewhat restricted, though, if properly trained up to the privilege, and this latter confined exclusively to men in their last stage, they would very rarely, I am certain, be found wanting in what was required of them. But apart from this, the objects of interesting prisoners, when under a course of moral discipline, in the administration of justice, and of giving them confidence in its equity, are very important ones—perhaps not any in all their management are more so: and both are absolutely wanting now, and may well be so in the circumstances in which they are placed.

"In 1839, the year before my arrival at Norfolk Island, 811 cases were tried; of which only four ended in acquittal—such was the certainty at that time of conviction if accused. In 1840, I acquitted 90 out of 416 tried. (I was then, perhaps, too difficult about evidence, and in my inexperience carried abstract principle too far.) In 1841, I acquitted 25 out of 297 tried; in 1842, 24 out of 326; and in 1843, 16 out of 429. I was much in the habit of employing the officers about the court as a sort of jury, referring to them, though not formally, in cases of difficulty, and inviting them to ask questions. And I very early appointed an intelligent prisoner, in whom I otherwise had confidence, to speak for men accused of local offences, and make the most of their several statements, on condition, however, that he never said for them what he knew to be directly false. He thus served me very much, for what he did not say I sifted with the more care; and the plan altogether, and it is nearly that in the text, answered extremely well. It greatly improved the pleader himself: under the new impulses given to both his head and heart, he became almost a new man: while stupid prisoners, who could not speak for themselves, had as good a chance given them as the cleverest, and the latter, another very important point, had no better."—Maconochie on the Management of Prisoners in the Australian Colonies.