was guilty or he was not. The judge could see as well as they could all the extenuating circumstances—perhaps better. Why tie his hands?
As a rule no attention was paid to such recommendations, anyhow, and it only made the jury look wabbly.
(Dreiser, The Financier).
Explain the terms, used in the text above:
extenuating circumstances; mercy; indictment verdict; on all four counts; charges.
Now read the extract from the same novel and answer the question:
Can you agree with the following statement of Th. Dreiser?
Men in a jury-room, like those scientifically demonstrated atoms of a crystal which scientists and philosophers love to speculate upon, like finally to arrange themselves into an orderly and artistic whole, to present a compact, intellectual front, to be whatever they have set out to be, properly and rightly - compact, sensible jury.
(Dreiser, The Financier).
Unit 81 kinds of trial
[ is a trial by magistrates without a jury. Some offences triable either way are also tried in this way. The latter include offences of deception, theft, bigamy and sexual intercourse with a girl under the age of 16.
Offences triable either way .are called so because they are crimes that may be tried either as an indictable offence or a summary offence.
When an offence is triable either way, the magistrates' court must decide, on hearing the initial facts of the case, if it should be tried on idictment rather than summarily. Even if they decide that they can deal with the matter themselves, they must give the defendant the choice of opting for trial upon indictment before the jury.
An indictable offence is an offence that may be tried on indictment, i.e. by jury in the Crown Court.
Tasks and exercises
Guess the terms on the basis of their definitions:
It is an offence tried by jury in the Crown Court.
It is a trial by magistrates without a jury.
It is a crime that may be tried either as an indictable offence or a summary offence.
Insert the prepositions:
The defendant was given the choice of opting ... trial ... indictment... the jury.
Give the words of the same root:
indictable ► noun
to try —adjective
to defend noun
to deceive noun
Speak on the three kinds of trial mentioned in the text.
Read and retell the text:
The court system (Court-room)
He (Cowperwood) at once took in the nature of the scene, which had a peculiar interest for him. Before him was the as yet empty judge's rostrum, and at its right the empty jury-box, between which, and to the judge's left, as he sat facing the audience, stood the witness-chair where he must presently sit
Unit 82 capital punishment
The abolition of capital punishment in England in November 1965 was welcomed by most people with progressive ideas. Still the problem remains — the problem of now to prevent murders. The important thing in the prevention of murder is to eliminate as far as possible the weapons and instruments, the guns and knives, with which these crimes are committed and to stop the dangerous influence of violence in books, films and television.
We have plenty of examples from real life, in every country, to prove that few criminals are born: they are made by our standards of so-called entertainment; Cowboys and Indians, Wild West films which are only exciting when guns are shooting and bad men are being killed, spy stories of the James Bond type with death in every form, bank robberies and «perfect murder» stories with killings on every few pages or in every few minutes of film. Anybody who wants to commit a murder has no difficulty in buying a knife, a gun, or some «interesting» poison. Life is cheap in fiction; no matter how many people are killed — the more the marrier—the main thing is that the hero and the heroine remain alive to enjoy the happy end.
So the practical way of reducing the number of capital crimes is to close the gunshops and to make it a criminal offence for the man in the street to possess a lethal weapon.