Jury Women

Women are no longer considered outsiders in business, in Congress, at the bar.

Florence Ellinwood Allen, onetime Cleveland Plain Dealer musicritic, sits as judge of the U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals at Cincinnati. Mrs. Frances Perkins Wilson is Secretary of Labor. The 19th Amendment to the U. S. Constitution gave women the right to vote in 1920. Still forbidden women in 26 States, however, is another prime privilege of a citizen--the right to serve as jurors.

In New York--one of the 26--the Judicial Council last week renewed its recommendation that the State Legislature authorize jury service by women under the same qualifications as men. The council held the practice would improve the calibre of petit juries. Feminist drives for jury rights in New York State began 15 years ago, but each time the Legislature allowed bills broadening the statutes to die in committee. In 1931 Bar Association groups fought the proposal, said lawyers had "difficulty in talking to women jurors." New Jersey has permitted mixed juries since 1921, advertised the fact when four women sat on the jury which heard the case of Bruno Richard Hauptmann. Last week in Newark the New Jersey League of Women Voters opened a school for jurors. This week the first all-woman jury ever to sit in Federal Court in Newark took 32 minutes to convict an ex-convict of train robbery.

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