No Reflection

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."

* llinois became the 13th State to have compulsory jury service for women; 12 States, Alaska and the District of Columbia permit them to serve but don't make it mandatory; 23 States still maintain the jury in masculine purity.

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