Vermont Bar Journal, Vol. 40, No. 2 Fall 2014, Vol. 40, No. 3 | Page 20

Ruminations: Royce Dynasty

should have been excluded, as the statement was not “concurrent with the act,” allowing Davis time to “imagine or concoct
a false account.” Royce’s decision is crisp
and clear, and well-reasoned. Admitting
the evidence, he wrote, deprived “the accused of one of the important safeguards
which the law has given him for his protection.”49
The Phair murder trial was among Vermont’s most notable events in 1875. John
Phair was tried, convicted, and sentenced
to hang for the murder of Ann E. Freeze
of Rutland.50 Homer wrote the decision for
the Court on appeal, and rejected a claim
for a new trial based on a juror’s knowledge
of the case.
Men frequently form an opinion from
reading an account of a transaction in
newspapers, as did the jurymen in this
case. Such opinions are formed, relying upon the truthfulness of the published account, and are subject to be
changed and altered by contradictory
accounts. Men form opinions almost
imperceptibly, from hearing or reading; and opinions thus formed do not
generally disqualify them from rendering a fair and impartial judgment when
duty calls for its exercise. Persons accused of crime need intelligent jurors
to judge of the truth or falsity of the
charges preferred against them, and
the adoption of the rule contended for
would operate to exclude reading, intelligent men from the jury box, and
their places would have to be supplied
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