Although women gained the right to vote in 1920, they had to push for equal rights when it came to jury duty. The new voting privilege did not automatically allow them to sit on juries or hold office in many places. The Baltimore Sun reported: “Merely because she may help decide who shall be elected sheriff, court clerk, mayor or president it does not follow that she may also decide who is guilty of murder, arson, or wife-beating.” 1.
Many argued that the ladies were too delicate and needed in the home to be subjected to the unseemly business of the court. After listening to shocking testimony, opponents noted that they would then have to discuss it with strange men behind closed doors. Anti-suffragists asserted similar arguments during the long struggle for the franchise, raising the specter of women serving on juries as one of the many reasons for opposing votes for women.
A Wilmington newspaper sketched out the entitlements that came with the vote in the First State: “Not only may women of Delaware be summoned for jury duty and be eligible for office holding in the event of ratification of the suffrage amendment is sustained, but they may be admitted to practice law at the bar of the state, the Evening Journal remarked. 2
Many in Delaware balked at this straightforward interpretation of the jury-qualification law. For example, in anticipation of women voting and being entitled to jury service, the General Assembly considered a bill to cut grand juries in all three counties from 24 to 12 members each. “We want to minimize the number of cold suppers while the grand jury is in session, said a friend of the bill. 3
Once the nation ratified the 19th Amendment, the change perplexed some Delaware officials. Two days after approval Attorney General Reinhardt delivered his opinion, advising that just as soon as they register to vote, they will be eligible for jury duty. However, should there be no women’s names placed in the box used to draw the panel, “of course, there would be no women on the jury, but if their names are placed in the box and are drawn, they will have to serve the same as men.” 4
Delaware Jury Commissioner John R. Lambson questioned whether or not the precedent established in some states of drawing women to serve as jurors would be followed here as the issue had not been decided by the jury commissioners. Adding that he was uncertain about the powers of the commissioners, Mr. Lambson said it might require special instructions from the court.
The first Delaware women to serve on a jury were called by Coroner Bullock in Nov. 1920. Mrs. Lillian Jacobs, Miss Katherine Livsey, Mrs. John Kelly, and Mrs. George Lord, of Wilmington, were summoned to sit as jurors at the inquest on the death of John J. Festing, a motorman of the New Castle Line of the Wilmington Traction Company, whose death was thought to have been due to falling from his car 5 Pleased with the jury, the coroner remarked that hereafter he would make mixed juries a regular part of his inquests. 6
The State delegated the selection process to jury commissioners, the members in New Castle County being Major Joseph C. Lawson and John R. Lambson. They put the names of qualified voters in a box and withdrew names for the various court terms. Major Lawson advised on Dec. 2, 1920, that no action had been taken to summon women as this was a matter for the State Judiciary to consider. When a reporter asked Judge Herbert L. Rice about this, he said the courts had not been asked for an opinion. 7
Delaware women on juries
Within a week, the United States District Court of Delaware drew two women for grand jury duty in the United States District Court for Delaware. The two Wilmington ladies, Mrs. Jessie Thomas Betts and Miss Miriam Worrell Webb were the first to serve in that capacity in the state’s history. However, women had already served on the coroner’s jury. 8
However, this question of being called on for jury duty was “causing much concern to thousands of women in Delaware who have been given the ballot,” the Evening Journal reported. “Women have served on juries empaneled by Coroner Bullock several times recently, and women jurors have served already in the courts of New York and other States.”
When lawmakers assembled in 1923, they struggled with sorting out the changes brought by the 19th amendment. Senator Hopkins’ introduced a bill to permit women to be relieved from jury duty without being required to give any reason. He also presented legislation requiring separate quarters for men and women when serving on a panel and separate bailiffs for men and women jurors when they stayed overnight.
These bills triggered lengthy, spirited debates. Miss Sanworth, Chairman of the Democratic County Women’s Committee, addressed the senate, saying that women had asked for the franchise, and now all they wanted was equal opportunity. “If called upon for jury duty, no matter how unpleasant that duty may be, the welfare of the government depended upon women doing their duty. This was not time to ask for or to desire special legislation because of sex.” 9
Mrs. Florence Bayard Hilles and Miss Marie Lockwood spoke against the legislation at the request of Senator Ridgley. The present law giving the court the authority to excuse jurors who have a valid excuse, applying as it does to both, was sufficient. There should be no discrimination for or against women, the ladies noted. Mrs. Hilles added: “I belong to the National Woman’s Party, which exists for the purpose of taking out of the laws all discrimination against women. Women are not asking for any discrimination in their favor. They are merely asking that those against them should be stricken out.” 10
Senator Highfield favored the legislation claiming that under certain circumstances, women could not neglect their home duties or their duties to the children to serve on juries. “I would like to ask if there is any man in this Senate who would want his wife impaneled on juries on certain degrading cases,” he inquired. Senator Hopkins added that the women who spoke did not represent the sentiment of the women of Delaware. Most senators took the same position, approving it with a vote of 12 to 4. Senators Betts, Lutz, McDowell, and Walker voted against it. 11
In the House, Miss Laura Cune of Wyoming and Camden spoke on the floor. Saying she was not only expressing her sentiments but those of hundreds of other women in the state, she noted that she had not been an advocate of suffrage because she forewarned of the attending evils of suffrage for women. It was forced on Delaware by the action of her sister states. Miss Cune said there have been cases and will continue to be cases before juries that reek of filth in a mixed assembly it would be embarrassing for women and men to sit in such cases. The bill does not curtail the privileges of women, she argued, as they can serve on juries if they so desire. This bill, she declared, was an outcrop of age-old chivalry which had always promoted men to guard their woman folks. 12
Representative Lord said he favored the bill but questioned the legality of it because women and men are equal before the law and the constitution, which provided that all citizens must do jury duty.
Delaware Law Complicates Path to Equality
The House passed the measure by a vote of 29 to 4. Those voting against it were Representatives Allee, Carlisle, McManus and Lednum. Representatives Little and Marr were absent. (State of Delaware, “Juries,” Laws of the State, Jan 2, 1923, Vol. 34, Chapter 237, 679)), 13
This new law complicated the path to equality in the jury box. It brought into question foundational elements of the jury system, the random selection of a fair cross-section and compulsory service. It also created a recurrent battle in the General Assembly as “some women” sought to put “women of Delaware on an equality with men in every particular as far as the state laws are concerned.”
The collision of home duties with civic and judicial ones came again in February 1925. That year members of the Senate disapproved of any effort to compel women of the state to do jury duty if they did not desire to serve in that capacity by killing a bill that provided for the removal of all sex distinction for jury duty. Senator Hardesty explained that the Legislature two years ago passed a bill giving women the right to decline jury duty if they desired.
In March 1929, Mrs. Florence Bayard Hilles and Miss Marie Lockwood spoke for a bill that would have placed women on equal footing with men as to jury duty. 14
Meanwhile, a report circulated that Mrs. Frances V. Buckson of Blackbird Hundred had been drawn for service. But the sheriff’s office announced that Mrs. Buckson was not the person summoned “as only men are drawn, the law at present exempting women from jury service.” The name pulled was Francis V. Buckson, a man’s name, but so far deputy sheriff McDowell who had the summons, had been unable to find anyone in that section of the county by that name. The similarity of Mrs. Buckson’s name to the one drawn caused speculation in the hundred, the Sheriff explained 15
In Feb 1931, the General Assembly considered a bill to place women on the same footing as men for jury duty. Supporters argued that they should be required to serve on juries under the same condition as men and that law should not allow them to be excused simply on request. 16
After this things proceeded quietly until World War II disrupted Delaware’s selection method. With so many men serving in the armed services or engaged in essential wartime production work, a shortage of prospective jurors existed. As the pool of available candidates shrank, the jury board started drawing women for service, the first time in seventeen years, according to the News Journal. This resulted in Mrs. Elizabeth Carroll White, of Brandywine Hundred being selected, but she elected not to avail herself as state law still permitted her to be excused from jury duty upon request. 17
Two Sussex County Ladies, Mrs. Ida J. Fox of Milton and Mrs. Elsie McGee Bryan of near Lewes were also drawn to serve as petit jurors for the term of Oyer and Terminer Court which was convening to try a murder case. This was the first time women had been drawn in the history of Sussex County. 18 But they failed to see service. Mrs. Bryan was excused for business reasons while Mrs. Fox although present, was not called. 19
In Kent County Jury Commissioner Walker L. Miffling and Wilbur E. Jacobs also decided to include women on the jury panels for the county courts because of the shortage of men. Women thus far had never been empaneled in the county. 20
The “foolish man-made statute”
Marie T. Lockwood, the chair of the Delaware Branch of the National Women’s party, noted the results of the “foolish man-made statute of 1925 [1923],” which permitted women to be excused from court service for any reason. “When women were given the right to vote in Delaware, with it came the right to serve on juries,” she wrote in a letter to the editor. Because of this Delaware Statute of 1925 [1923], which you mention, women were permitted to be excused from jury service without having an excuse. Now that men are scarce, being called for other purposes, the jury board at once tries drawing women and met with the results of this foolish-man made statute of 1925 [1923]. Jury service is part of the duty of citizenship. One should not be excused when there is not a valid excuse. Marie T. Lockwood, Chairman Delaware Branch of Nation Woman Party’s Middletown, DE April 15, 1942. 21
A bill to repeal the act of 1923, which excused women from being empaneled upon request, was introduced by Rep. Clarence E. McVey in 1945. 22 After the General Assembly repealed the old law, Walter W. Bacon signed it on April 19, 1945. (State of Delaware, Laws of the State, “Juries” Vol. 38, Chapter 253, 968))
Ladies and Gentleman of the Jury
But the inclusion of women in the draws continued to cause legal wrangling. Following a Grand Jury indictment of three Wilmington men two years later, the defense attorney argued before the Court of Oyer and Terminer that the “indictment was illegally constituted because of the exclusion of women.” Chief Justice Charles S. Richards wrote an opinion saying that while the drawing of women on juries is not mandatory, nevertheless, “they should be included at all times on the jury panels from which the jurors are drawn for both grand and petit juries.” Delaware had “lagged behind in recognizing the rights and obligations of women,” he explained. She statute providing for Delaware juries embraced women as well as men and the jury commissioners should endeavor at all times to select those who are suited and qualified. In view of the great change which has taken place in the activities of women in public life in this state as everywhere else, we think the “jury commissioners should not only recognize that they are liable to serve as jurors but should include them at all times on the jury panel from which jurors or drawn . . . in order that said juries may be truly representative of every class of citizen . . . . 23
For more on Women on Juries — See
Part I (Delaware Women on Juries); Part II (Maryland Women on Juries — Under Construction).
- “Vote Not a Jury Permit,” Baltimore Sun, April 5, 1920, A5[↩]
- Evening Journal, Aug. 23, 1920 p 1[↩]
- “Levy Court Ripper for New Castle County,” News Journal, March 30, 1920. P 1.[↩]
- Evening Journal Aug 28, 1920[↩]
- Evening Journal, Nov. 3, 1920[↩]
- Evening Journal, Nov. 15, 1920[↩]
- “Women Not on Jury List Yet, Evening Journal, Dec. 2, 1920, 7[↩]
- “Draw Women on U.S. Jury Panel,” Evening Journal, Dec. 9, 1920, 8[↩]
- Women’s Pleas Ignored: Excuse Them From Jury, Morning News, Feb. 16, 1923, 1[↩]
- “Debate Over Jury Duty for Women,” Evening Journal, Feb. 14, 1923).), ((“Why Excuse Women from Jury Service?” Morning News, Feb. 15, 1923, 10[↩]
- “Women Free of Duty as Jurors, Feb. 16, 1923, 1[↩]
- Evening Journal, March 1 1923, 15[↩]
- “Women Need Not Serve on Juries If They Object,” Morning News, March 1, 1923, 1[↩]
- “Women May Still Escape Jury Duty,” Morning News, March 9, 1929, 17[↩]
- “Women is not wanted as juror,” News Journal, Marc 5, 1929, 14[↩]
- “House Beats Bill Forcing Women on Juries by 9 to 23,” Morning News, Feb. 10, 1931, 1[↩]
- Woman is called for u.s. jury duty Morning News, April 10, 1942, 7[↩]
- “Sussex Draws Women for July Jury Duty,” Morning News, June 10, 1942, 13[↩]
- Laurel Man Gets Life in Sussex Murder Trail,” Morning News, July 8, 1942, 1[↩]
- “Kent to Include Women on Jury,” Morning News, December 8, 1942, 22[↩]
- Marie T. Lockwood, “Letter to the Editor,” News Journal, April 17, 1942[↩]
- “Bill for Judges Raises Presented,” Morning News, Feb. 7, 1945, 2[↩]
- “Court Denies Motion to Quash Indictment by All Male Jury,” Dec. 23, 1947, 1[↩]