Crime

"There are frequently things sworn to which are so improbable that one does not believe them. It is one of the commonest things in the world in a criminal case to have the most positive oral evidence given on oath to establish a matter which neither the jury nor the Judge can believe, although it is sworn to."

"The criminal law ought to be reasonable and intelligible."

"The escape of one delinquent can never produce so much harm to the community as may arise from the infraction of a rule upon which the purity of public justice and the existence of civil liberty essentially depend."

"Unless civil institutions ensure protection to the innocent, all the confidence which mankind should have in them would be lost."

"I am of the same opinion with the Roman who, in the case of Catiline, declared he had rather ten guilty persons should escape than one innocent should suffer."

"Minatur innocentibus, qui pareit nocentibus: He threatens the innocent who spares the guilty."

"It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer."

"The law of England is anxious for the interests of persons against whom charges may be made. If a man commits a crime, there is a legal and constitutional mode by which that crime may be brought into discussion. He is liable to be tried, but though his crime may be as great and as aggravated as possible, he ought to have a full, fair, dispassionate, and temperate investigation of his conduct at the time of trial."

"Justice and common sense seem to have been sacrificed on the shrine of mercy."

"We cannot hear the client and counsel too, it is against all rules."

"You will understand one thing, and that is, that having been acquitted, you have no right to address one word either to the Court or the jury. At the same time, I do not wish to hold you strictly to that right ; but conduct yourself properly, and I will not stop you."

"Every human tribunal ought to take care to administer justice, as we look hereafter to have justice administered to ourselves."

"I agree with Mr. Pitt Taylor that, in many of the cases, justice and common sense have been sacrificed,8 but not, as it appears to me, at the shrine of mercy—rather at the shrine of guilt, because I regard a wrongful acquittal as unmerciful to the prisoner, whose real interests are sacrificed by his escape, as well as to society."

"Wise and practical regulations must contemplate and provide for the occasional oversights and inadvertences which, by the law of chances, are certain to happen among the thousands of criminal trials before all sorts of jurisdictions every year in England."

"You have a right to discourse with your counsel, but you must do it in such a manner as the jury may not hear."

"In all cases whatever it is usual for either plaintiff or defendant to speak by their counsel. You are assisted by a most able counsel, and you would not be guilty of any impropriety if what you wish to offer to the Court were first suggested to him, for he would then determine of the propriety of suggesting it to the Court."

"We sit here in this Court of Queen's Bench under the same obligation as the Queen holds her Crown, to administer justice with mercy according to the laws of the land."

"This Court will always know to temper mercy with justice where there is room for it."

"It is an invariable maxim in our law that no man shall be punished before he has had an opportunity of being heard."

"If his sorrow was honest and sincere it may go very far in mitigation."

"As anger does not become a Judge, so neither doth pity; for one is the mark of a foolish woman, as the other is of a passionate man."

"God forbid that the rights of the innocent should be lost and destroyed by the offence of individuals."

"The word " innocent" hath a double acceptation, innocent in respect of malice, and innocent in respect of the fact."

"Would to God you were innocent, that is the worst wish I wish you."

"Every man ought to have the fullest opportunity of establishing his innocence if he can."

"There must be an opportunity given to every person before judgment is passed upon him of being heard in his defence, and it is essential that the charge should always be intimated to the supposed delinquent."

"It is certain that natural justice requires that no man shall be condemned without notice."

"It is of the essence of justice not to decide against any one on grounds which are not charged against him, and as to which he has not had an opportunity of offering explanations or calling evidence."

"It is necessary to the administration of justice that every person who is accused of a crime should have an opportunity of being heard in his defence against the charge of which he is accused."

"I take it to be contrary to the first principles of English jurisprudence and English law that a man should be condemned unheard."

"Without resorting to authorities in a plain case, the common sense and feeling of mankind, the voice of nature, reason, and revelation, all concur in this plain rule, That no man is to be condemned unheard; and consequently no trial ought to proceed to the condemnation of a man who by the providence of God is rendered totally incapable of speaking for himself, or of instructing others to speak for him."

"The laws of God and man both give the party an opportunity to make his defence, if he has any. I remember to have heard it observed by a very learned man upon such an occasion, that even God himself did not pass sentence upon Adam before he was called upon to make his defence. Adam (says God), where art thou? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat? And the same question was put to Eve also."

"In criminal cases you always begin by proving the corpus delicti, and then connect the prisoner with it."

"In a criminal case I can presume nothing."

"God forbid that the defendant should not be allowed the benefit of every advantage he is entitled to by law."

"It is the pride of our laws to labour more for the acquittal than the conviction of the accused, however black the allegations of offence."

"There is no difference between civil and criminal cases as to evidence; whatever is proper evidence in one case is in the other. With respect to criminal cases, if there is any doubt, one would lean in favour of a defendant, for the reason mentioned by my lord yesterday, because that is not to be set right afterwards."

"I once before had occasion to refer to the opinion of a most eminent Judge, who was a great Crown lawyer, upon the subject, I mean Lord Hale; who even in his time lamented the too great strictness which had been required in indictments, and which had grown to be a blemish and inconvenience in the law; and observed that more offenders escaped by the over easy ear given to exceptions in indictments than by their own innocence."

"Justice requires that a party should be duly summoned and fully heard before he is condemned."

"The natural leaning of our minds is in favour of prisoners; and in the mild manner in which the laws of this country are executed, it has rather been a subject of complaint by some that the Judges have given way too easily to mere formal objections2 on behalf of prisoners, and have been too ready on slight grounds to make favourable representations of their cases. Lord Hale himself, one of the greatest and best men who ever sat in judgment, considered this extreme facility as a great blemish, owing to which more offenders escaped than by the manifestation of their innocence." We must, however, take care not to carry this disposition too far, lest we loosen the bands of society, which is kept together by the hope of reward, and the fear of punishment. It has been always considered, that the Judges in our foreign possessions abroad were not bound by the rules of proceeding in our Courts here. Their laws are often altogether distinct from our own. Such is the case in India and other places. On appeals to the Privy Council from our colonies, no formal objections are attended to, if the substance of the matter or the corpus delicti sufficiently appear to enable them to get at the truth and justice of the case."

"I take it that the judgment is an essential point in every conviction, let the punishment be fixed or not."

"A conviction is in the nature of a verdict and judgment, and therefore it must be precise and certain."

"Really I wish I was more acquainted than I am, with the course of criminal jurisdiction—if the question had never been decided, I should have extreme doubts upon it, and those extreme doubts which I should have would lead me in a criminal case to do otherwise than I should do in a civil case—in every civil case [I speak in the hearing of a great many professional gentlemen] wherever I have serious doubts, I follow the doctrine which I have collected to be laid down by Lord Hardwicke; I receive the evidence, giving the jury the best instruction I can upon the effect of it; and I do it in the case of civil proceedings, without running the risk of doing any hurt, because if I receive it improperly, a season will come when the Court can correct my error."

"There are certain irregularities which are not the subject of criminal law. But when the criminal law happens to be auxiliary to the law of morality, I do not feel any inclination to explain it away."

"We must follow the old authorities and precedents in criminal matters."

"Judges should be, and I believe generally are, careful not to allow proof of other acts of the prisoner besides those the subject of the indictment to be given, unless those acts have a clear bearing on some issue raised by the indictment."

"My opinion of the liberty of the press is that every man ought to be permitted to instruct his fellow subjects; that every man may fearlessly advance any new doctrines, provided he does so with proper respect to the religion and government of the country; that he may point out errors in the measures of public men; but he must not impute criminal conduct to them. The liberty of the press cannot be carried to this extent without violating another equally sacred right; namely, the right of character. This right can only be attacked in a court of justice, where the party attacked has a fair opportunity of defending himself"

"I think that a man who has been guilty of an indictable offence ought not to have the assistance of the law to recover the profits of his crime; and that whether his agents be innocent or criminal, privy or not privy, his claim against those agents is equally inadmissible in a Court of law."

"It has been solemnly decided that there is no difference between the rules of evidence in civil and criminal cases. If the rules of evidence prescribe the best course to get at truth, they must be and are the same in all cases and in all civilized countries."

"The true ground of the doctrine in felony is this: if a felony be compounded of two distinct acts, one of which takes place in one county and the other in another county, the concurrence of both being necessary to constitute the felony, the party may not be triable in either, because, ex hypothesi, there is no felony committed in either."