Vermont Bar Journal, Vol. 40, No. 2 Fall 2015, Vol 41, No. 3 | Page 10

by Paul S. Gillies, Esq.

RUMINATIONS

When Inquests Were Inquisitions
When death comes unexpectedly, when
there is uncertainty about what happened,
officials must inquire. An inquest is the first
stage in the criminal justice process that
may lead to a grand jury, charges, and a
trial. It was a part of legal procedure in this
state from before there was a Vermont,
based on the English model. Its purpose is
not to accuse or charge. It is purely investigatory. But until the 1850s, the result of
the inquest was not kept secret, and the
conclusion that someone was responsible for a death became public knowledge
even when no subsequent proceedings followed.
An inquest differs from a grand jury. A
grand jury is empowered to indict, by the
finding of a true bill. An inquest answers
or tries to answer how a person died. Today, the proceedings of both are treated
as secret. The doors on the room where
the hearing is conducted are locked, and
everyone, from the jurors to the bailiff, are
sworn to maintain the confidentiality of the
proceedings. That is one reason studying
these institutions is a challenging business.
The evidence about how inquests were
conducted and how they ruled has leaked
into the public domain through official and
unofficial sources. Let’s unseal some of it.
Unlike grand juries, today inquests are
heard by a single judge, but the court of
inquest, or court of inquiry, was a feature
of the law from 1779 to 1856. After that
date, justices of the peace acted alone,
and made decisions that at times led to
the next stage of the criminal justice system, the grand jury, and beyond that to a
criminal prosecution by the state’s attorney. But during the era of the jury, the process was different. The jury was the body
responsible for the decision, not the justice
of the peace, who would give no charge
or instructions. How this worked procedurally is unclear, but results became public in
this period. They were described in a newspaper, and were the subject of public discussion. Even when no charges were filed,
people knew that a jury had found someone to be the cause of a death. A very different thing from a conviction, of course,
but the censure was manifest in the finding,
and served, without more, as a sanction in
some cases.
Inquisitions are hearings without the
benefit of a defense. Torquemada, the
Grand Inquisitor of fifteenth century Spain,
used more corporal means to investigate
and obtain confessions of heretics, but the
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process of looking into evidence of criminal acts in an official forum, closed to the
public, leaving the accused no role to observe or review the process, seems similarly, if not equally, unfair. It is inconsistent
with our modern appreciation for openness and due process, and our respect for
the rights of the