Australia’s first civilian jury was entirely female. Here’s how ‘juries of matrons’ shaped our legal history
- Written by Alice Neikirk, Program Convenor, Criminology, University of Newcastle
A French jury of matrons in 1771.British Museum, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-NC-SAIt’s hard to imagine now, but for almost 1,000 years, pregnant women in England could avoid the death penalty just by virtue of being pregnant. A pregnant woman sentenced to death would receive a stay of execution until the baby was born. It was...
