Controlling Jury Composition in Nineteenth-Century Ireland

Difficulties in securing convictions in nineteenth-century Ireland led the authorities
to resort to various methods of ensuring that petty juries delivered guilty verdicts in
cases where this was clearly warranted by the evidence. This article examines some
of the ‘stratagems’ put forward by David Johnson and suggests a number of other
practices which were used, arguing that many of these mechanisms centred around
controlling the composition of trial juries. Examples included altering the property
qualifications for jurors, the system of asking jurors to ‘stand aside’ and the use of
fines to compel attendance. While some of these were the legitimate exercise of
established procedures, it will be seen that the crown on occasion abused or overused
its powers.