Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 35, Number 132, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 November 1903 — Beam Jury Disagrees. [ARTICLE]

Beam Jury Disagrees.

The. jury in the Truman Beam case, in the superior court at Hammond failed to agree and were discharged Tuesday forenoon. The jury was out the unusually long time of 87 hours. At one time they stood ll for life imprisonment and one for acquittal. Their last ballot was nine for conviction and three fcfr acquittal. The one man that stood out all the time was Geo. M. Eder, of Bammond, an ex-clerk of Lake county. —This trial, it is estimated will cost Porter county $2,500, and now it must all be done over again. It is such failures of the law as this that do their share towards .encouraging the lynching spirit. Lawyers ought not be permitted to everlastingly pound into the jury’s heads the necessity of proving a man guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, to the extent they do, and in murder trials it ought to be possible for 11 men or even ten to fix a verdict ojt life imprisonment, requiring a unanimous jury only for the death penalty.