Whenever the Supreme Court expands the rights of the accused, as it did in its famous 1963 Gideon decision requiring free lawyers for indigent felony defendants, pessimists predict that prisoners will win new trials based on the new rights.
Last week Justice John M. Harlan worriedly pointed to the case of Lee E. A. Parker, who devised a novel gambit for getting out of Oregon State Penitentiary, where he was serving a life sentence for murder. Parker sent his wife to find which of his jurors had been most hesitant to convict him—and why.
Three woman jurors (including one alternate) recalled having heard...
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