Jury Duty and Women Jurors

So many of us complain about being called for jury duty and will do anything to avoid such a waste of time. And then the few dollars we're paid is taxable income. Complain, complain, complain.

Well, woman -- ladies -- take a look at this. If that is your attitude, you may rethink it when you see what was happening not all that long ago, only 70 years.

In 1939 Illinois became the 13th State to have compulsory jury service for women; 12 States, Alaska and the District of Columbia permitted them to serve but didn't make it mandatory; 23 States still maintained the jury in masculine purity.

Here's the story, titled "No Reflection," from TIME Magazine, Nov. 13, 1939, that my husband, a historian, came upon in his research. I thought it might interest you.

Illinois women, led by the League of Women Voters, have long clamored for the right to serve on juries. Last summer they got their reward: the courts upheld the constitutionality of a new law making jury service for women in Illinois
compulsory.

Recently Chicago's first mixed jury in Federal court -- six men, six women, five of them members of the League of Women Voters -- sat to hear a suit over a will of Attorney Samuel J. Howe, which cut off his son and left his $70,000 estate to Northwestern University. Son Willard C. Howe contested it.

After a month of argument before Judge Michael L. Igoe, the jury received the case on Friday afternoon. Seven favored setting the will aside, depriving Northwestern University of the $70,000 bequest. Five opposed, among them Mrs.
Katherine Merrifield, wife of Dr. Frederick W. Merrifield, professor at Northwestern. Saturday morning the arguing jurors asked for further instructions, were told that if they reached no verdict they would be locked up
till Monday. Then the minority, including Mrs. Merrifield, gave up, signed the verdict, went home for the week end.

Last week they returned to Judge Igoe's court. The foreman polled them perfunctorily. Up piped Mrs. Merrifield in a suddenly hushed courtroom: "That was not and is not my verdict. . . . I signed through cowardice. I submitted to
the will of the majority."

"A most shocking thing," said Judge Igoe, declaring a mistrial. "However," he added cautiously, "I think it is clearly understood that this is not a reflection on women jurors."