Law: Japanese Commission

There arrived in the U. S. a Japanese Commission, established to examine the trial-by-jury system of the Occident. Among the members Were M. Minagawa, Attorney General of Japan; M. Toyomizu, Justice of the Court of Appeals of Tokio, and M. Iwamura, Councilor and Secretary to the Minister of Justice. After leaving the U. S., the Commission will proceed to Britain, France, Germany and Italy, to conduct further investigations into the application of trial-by-jury in the courts of those countries.

In the land of the Empire of the East, the Judge is the all-powerful factor in the courts. He decides the guilt of a prisoner and sentences him according to the law, no matter if that sentence be one of death.

Speaking of the trial-by-jury system, M. Minagawa said: "Our first impression of the system is that cases cannot be tried as quickly before a jury as when a judge is the only one before whom the facts are placed. Then, too, the emotional appeal of the case is emphasized much more than we are accustomed to seeing. However, we sat through several cases in San Francisco, and in each instance we agreed among ourselves that the juries' verdicts were the same as ours would have been, if any one of us were acting as judge."