Fun_People Archive
12 Feb
Juries & Cows

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From: Peter Langston <psl>
Date: Wed, 12 Feb 97 16:33:03 -0800
To: Fun_People
Subject: Juries & Cows

Forwarded-by: cefwis@juno.com (Charles E. Friederich)

    Since juries have been in the news lately, the following anecdote is
timely (related by Barbara Holland in the Smithsonian Magazine of March,
1995):

    British lawyers tell the story of a jury in New South Wales that was
considering the matter of some stolen cows. about which the jurors certainly
knew more than the court would ever learn.  After deliberating, they
returned a verdict of "Not guilty, if he returns the cows."  The judge was
outraged at this insult to the law and threw them back out to think again.
Pigheaded and mutinous, they returned with a new verdict, "Not guilty--and
he doesn't have to return the cows."
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