Justice

"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."

"It is abominable to convict a man behind his back."

"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."

"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."

"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"

"Some of these men have issued statements attempting to apologize and take responsibility. Weinstein checked into rehab, and reportedly was hoping for a second chance in Hollywood. And after the dust settles and these men spend a few months or a years out of the spotlight, some of them will undoubtedly attempt returns to their previous positions. Before they do, we must reckon with the questions of forgiveness, rehabilitation and redemption. Can these men be redeemed? And what does redemption — or just forgiveness — look like? For those of us who care about social justice (and legal justice), these are crucial concepts. While the American criminal justice system is largely punitive, liberals are always pushing to make it more focused on rehabilitation and to help offenders successfully re-enter society — and for society to welcome them back. We criticize the prison system, the industrialization of prisons and the financial incentives they create to increase incarceration rates. We oppose the disenfranchisement of felons. We want to “ban the box,” so that people who have served their time do not need to disclose on college or job applications that they’ve been incarcerated. Some of us (myself included) oppose post-release punishments, including overly broad sex offender registries and laws barring certain categories of sex offenders from living in many places. The result of these laws is that many of these offenders end up unemployed and homeless."

"Felony stands on a very different ground from misdemeanour; and the assertion that a misdemeanour can be tried in that county alone wherein any part of it was committed, appears to me to have been built upon a mistake of the true ground and reason of the doctrine in felony."

"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 bread you are holding back is for the hungry, the clothes you keep put away are for the naked, the shoes that are rotting away with disuse are for those who have none, the silver you keep buried in the earth is for the needy. You are thus guilty of injustice toward as many as you might have aided, and did not."

"INJUSTICE, n. A burden which of all those that we load upon others and carry ourselves is lightest in the hands and heaviest upon the back."

"When one has been threatened with a great injustice, one accepts a smaller as a favour."

"Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted."

"We have failed to bring justice. We cannot build the future on injustice."

"Injustice has a very dangerous ripple effect that must be combated right from the beginning. Imagine society as a pond disturbed by a pebble thrown into its still waters. The ripples created by this disturbance represent the far-reaching consequences of injustice. When a group is denied basic rights or faces [unreasonable] discrimination, the impact extends beyond the immediate targets. A ripple effect ensues, affecting neighboring communities and eventually damaging the entire social landscape. Grave injustices go on persisting everywhere around the world, including in democracies. Even if it is to a lesser extent than in totalitarian, dictatorial or autocratic regimes, it should never be underestimated or disregarded. That is the reason why social justice is increasingly put at the centre of international, national and regional policy agendas."

"Saying "no" to injustice is the ultimate declaration of hope."

"If you tremble with indignation at every injustice, then you are a comrade of mine."

"Above all, try always to be able to feel deeply any injustice committed against any person in any part of the world. It is the most beautiful quality of a revolutionary."

"First, then, a woman will or won’t, depend on ’t; If she will do ’t, she will; and there ’s an end on ’t. But if she won’t, since safe and sound your trust is, Fear is affront, and jealousy injustice."

"To this war of every man against every man, this also in consequent; that nothing can be unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice have there no place. Where there is no common power, there is no law, where no law, no injustice. Force, and fraud, are in war the cardinal virtues."

"Intemperance is naturally punished with diseases; rashness, with mischance; injustice, with violence of enemies; pride, with ruin; cowardice, with oppression; and rebellion, with slaughter."

"Feeling that the world is wrong does not necessarily mean that we have a picture of a utopia to put in its place. Nor does is necessarily mean a romantic, some-day-my-prince-will-come idea that, although things are wrong now, one day we shall come to a true world, a promised land, a happy ending. We need no promise of a happy ending to justify our rejection of a world we feel to be wrong."

"How unjust is Nemesis? How often does good come from evil and evil from good? Does not deceit often lead one to the pinnacle of success, while the reward for honesty and sober living is sometimes nothing but failure and despair?"

"We are raised to believe that breaking the law is wrong and following the law is right. But what if the law itself is a miscarriage of justice, crafted by those more interested in [keeping political power] than in [encouraging] fairness? …do we have no choice but to adhere to a system that is proven to be unjust? Or do we have the right to object? … One of the greatest dangers of a system that we can observe, is that [the] citizens come to accept the system's injustices as [a part of] the norm. Over time, they begin to believe that only the state apparatus [and all those who enforce its written rules and unwritten rules] can implement justice, and that questioning or opposing the justice system makes them [and others] criminals or bad citizens [or bad people]."

"…as Habermas would remind us, peace cannot be pursued in isolation from justice. It must be grounded in the ethical treatment of all citizens, including those who belong to spiritual minorities. … A society cannot credibly advocate for peace while tolerating injustice. It cannot build bridges with the world while burning bridges with its citizens. And it cannot claim moral leadership while denying moral redress."

"…abolishing unjust systems does not automatically abolish injustice. Because injustice is not only a matter of law. It is a matter of how bureaucrats interpret the law, how officials use their power, how institutions treat the people they are meant to serve."

"The nature of injustice is that we may not always see it in our own times. The generations that wrote and ratified the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment did not presume to know the extent of freedom in all of its dimensions, and so they entrusted to future generations a charter protecting the right of all persons to enjoy liberty as we learn its meaning. When new insight reveals discord between the Constitution’s central protections and a received legal stricture, a claim to liberty must be addressed."

"Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured."

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly."

"I know there is a God, and that He hates injustice and slavery. I see the storm coming, and I know that His hand is in it. If he has a place and work for me—and I think He has—I believe I am ready."