Justice

"This statute is indeed as obscure a one as any in the statute-book : it is difficult to ascertain its true meaning. Therefore I do not chuse to give any direct opinion about its extent; unless it should become absolutely necessary for me to do so."

"I am not, as I consider, to decide cases in favour of fools or idiots, but in favour of ordinary English people, who understand English when they see it, and are not deceived by any difference in type, but who have before them a very plain statement."

"We do not use to judge of cases by fractions."

"I think it is not best for us to declare our opinions by piece-meals, but upon all the case together, and as you are a stranger to the return, so are we; and there be many precedents and acts of Parliament not printed, which we must see."

"No system of judicature can be suggested in which occasionally failure to insure complete justice may not arise."

"It has been often said that Courts of justice have nothing to do with what are called principles of honour, and there is a well-known case in the books, with which those who practise in the Courts are veryfamiliar, in which, upon a counsel saying to Lord Thurlow, " Your lordship must think in point of honour" so and so, Lord Thurlow said, "Upon that ground you must apply to the person himself; I do not give any opinion upon that subject.""

"Equity in its general sense is that quality in the transactions of mankind which accords with natural justice, or with honesty and right. . . . But in its juridical sense, that is to say, as administered by the Courts, equity embraces a jurisdiction much less wide than the principles of natural justice; for there are many matters of natural justice which the Courts have wholly unprovided for, partly from the difficulty of framing rules to meet them and partly from the doubtful policy of attempting to give a legal sanction to duties of so-called imperfect obligation, such as charity, justice and kindness."

"Upon your honour, sir! pray speak by your honesty."

"If we were sitting in a court of honour, our decision might be different."

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

"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."

"In a criminal proceeding the question is not alone whether substantial justice has been done, but whether justice has been done according to law. All proceedings in poenam are, it need scarcely be observed, strictissimi juris; nor should it be forgotten that the formalities of law, though here and there they may lead to the escape of an offender, are intended on the whole to insure the safe administration of justice and the protection of innocence, and must be observed. A party accused has the right to insist on them as matter of right, of which he cannot be deprived against his will; and the Judge must see that they are followed."

"Running away from justice, must always be considered an evidence of guilt."

"Flight, in criminal cases, is itself a crime. If an innocent man flies for treason or felony, he forfeits all his goods and chattels. Outlawry, in a capital case, is as a conviction for the crime: And many men who never were tried have been executed upon the outlawry."

"Flight, or an escape from arrest for felony, is an acknowledgment of guilt . . . every man, who is accused, is bound to submit himself to the judgment of the law; and, whether it be a trespass, or whether it be a felony with which he is charged, it may, with truth, be said of him who shrinks from trial—facinus fatetur qui judicium fugit."

"He who flees judgment confesses his guilt."

"The duty to prosecute, or not to prosecute, is a social and not a legal duty, which depends on the circumstances of each case. It cannot be said that it is a moral duty to prosecute in all cases. The matter depends on considerations, which vary according to each case. But the person who has to act is bound morally to be influenced by no indirect motive. He is morally bound to bring a fair and honest mind to the consideration and to exercise his decision from a sense of duty to himself and others."

"It is to the interest of the public that the suppression of a prosecution should not be made matter of private bargain."

"If people with the very best intentions carry on prosecutions that are oppressive, the end may not always perhaps sanctify the means."

"Shall we indict one man for making a fool of another?"

"I do not approve of indicting, where there is another remedy: it carries the appearance of oppression."

"You shall have the laws of England, although you refuse to own them in not holding up your hand; for the holding up of the hand hath been used as a part of the law of England these five hundred years."

"The law is plain, that you are positively to answer, guilty, or not guilty, which you please."

"He that doth refuse to put himself upon his legal trial of God and the Country, is a mute in law; and therefore you must plead guilty or not guilty. Let his language be what it will, he is a mute in law."

"Truly I think it one of the most reasonable laws in the world, that a man be tried by his county, by the neighbourhood ; and it has given ground to a good English proverb: "He that has an ill-name, is half hanged."* A man's repute among his neighbours goes a great way in this matter, when his neighbours shall say they never knew ill by him."

"Nothing could be of worse consequence, than that an officer of the Court should combine with a criminal to frustrate the sentence of the Court."

"He that hath an ill name is half hang'd ye know."

"A conviction must be good in all its parts; the information must be supported by the evidence, and the judgment must be supported by both."

"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."

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

"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."