LAW AND THE COURTS 243

those who are called, if an adequate reason is given, and, after
an exceptionally long or serious case, the jurors may be excused
from further service for a period of years. When a jury -is being
empanelled at the beginning of a trial, either side may object to
any member, and someone else will be taken. The intention is
that the jurors shall have had no previous connection with the
persons in the case. At the trial they are required by the judge
to dismiss from their minds anything they may previously have
heard about the case. As the earlier proceedings before the
magistrates and possibly in a Coroner's Court will have been
reported in the press, this injunction is not easy to obey. The
jury at a murder trial is cut off from contact with the outside
world, while the trial lasts.

The prosecution may be instituted by a private person, by the
police, or by the Director of Public Prosecutions, and will be
conducted by a barrister, who in a few cases of great importance
will be the Attorney-General. In an opening speech he describes
the facts as they appear to his side, and calls witnesses to support
the story. Their evidence is laid before the court, in answers to
a series of questions put by the counsel for the prosecution;
they are then cross-examined, i.e., questioned by the counsel
for the defence, who endeavours to show that they are either
mistaken or lying; the judge may intervene with questions of his
own. The court is guided by strict rules as to what evidence and
what questions to witnesses may be permitted. In particular,
neither side may try to confuse the jury, or excite irrational
emotions, by bringing in matter irrelevant to the case; and
witnesses must state what they themselves saw or heard, not the
experiences and sayings of other people. Each counsel is alert
to detect breaches of the rules by his opponent; sometimes the
jury are sent away, while counsel argue, and the judge decides,
the admissibility of certain evidence. When the prosecution has
completed its case, counsel for the defence may sometimes submit
that there is no real approach to proof, and therefore no case to
answer; if the judge agrees he will direct the jury to find a verdict