Juries

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."