14. Give illustrations of the exercise of federal government, state government, and local government, in your own town or city. Of which government do you observe the most signs? Of which do you observe the fewest signs? Of which government do the officers seem most sensitive to local opinion?
15. Are the sessions of the legislature in your state annual or biennial? What is the argument for each system?
For answers to numbers 16, 17, 18, and 19, consult the public statutes, a lawyer, or some intelligent business man. A fair idea of the successive steps in the courts may be obtained from a good unabridged dictionary by looking up the technical terms employed in these questions.
16. What is the difference between a civil action and a criminal?
a. In respect to the object to be gained in each?
b. In respect to the party that is the plaintiff?
c. In respect to the consequences to the defendant if the case goes
against him?
17. Give an outline of the procedure in a minor criminal action that is tried without a jury in a lower court. Consider (1) the complaint, (2) the warrant, (3) the return, (4) the recognizance, (5) the subpoena, (6) the arraignment, (7) the plea, (8) the testimony, (9) the arguments,(10) the judgment and sentence, and (11) the penalty and its enforcement.
What is an appeal?—This procedure seems cumbrous, but it is founded in common sense. What one of the foregoing steps, for example, would you omit? Why?
18. Give an outline of the procedure in a criminal action that is tried with a jury in a higher court. The action is begun in a lower court where the first five stages are the same as in number 17. Then follow (6) the examination of witnesses, (7) the binding over of the accused to appear before the higher court for trial, (8) the sending of the complaint and the proceedings thereon to the district or county attorney, (9) the indictment, (10) the action of the grand jury upon the indictment, (11) the challenging of jurors before the trial, (12) the arraignment, (13) the plea, (14) the testimony, (15) the arguments, (16) the charge to the jury, (17) the verdict, and (18) the sentence, with its penalty and the enforcement of it. What are "exceptions?"—Why should there be a jury in the higher court when there is none in the lower? What is the objection to dispensing with any one of the foregoing steps? Does this machinery make it difficult to punish crime? Why should an accused person receive so much consideration?
19. Give an outline of the procedure in a minor civil action. Consider (1) the writ, (2) the attachment, (3) the summons to the defendant, (4) the return, (5) the pleading, (6) the testimony, (7) the arguments, (8) the judgment or decision of the judge, and (9) the execution.—If the action is conducted in a higher court, then a jury decides the question at issue, the judge instructing the jurors in points of law.
20. Suppose an innocent man is tried for an alleged crime and acquitted, has he any redress?