FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162  
163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   172   173   174   175   176   177   178   179   180   181   182   183   184   185   186   187   >>   >|  
law in criminal cases. It is a popular and specious doctrine. But it never seemed to me to be sound. Among others, there are two reasons against it, which seem to me conclusive, and to which I have never seen a plausible answer. One is that if the jury is to judge of the law, you will have as many different laws as you have juries. There is no revision of their conclusion. They are not obliged to tell, and there is no way in which the court can know, what their opinion was. So a man tried on one side of the court-house may be held guilty, and another man tried on the other side of the court-house may be held innocent for precisely the same act. The other reason is that the court must always decide what evidence shall be admitted. So if the jury are to be the judges of the law, one authority must determine what evidence they shall consider, and another determine what law shall be applied to it. For instance, suppose a defendant charged with homicide offers to prove certain facts which as he claims justify the killing. The Judge says these facts do not, under the law, justify the killing and excludes the evidence. That may be the real point in the case, and the jury may believe that those facts fully justify the homicide; still they cannot be permitted to hear them. It is preposterous to suppose that so logical and reasonable a system as the Common Law could ever have tolerated such an absurdity. My friend, Mr. Justice Gray of the United States Supreme Court, an admirable judge and one of the great judges of the world, in his dissenting opinion in _Sparf et al. v. U. S., 156, U. S. Reports, page 51, etc.,_ has little to say on this point, except that of course there must be some authority to regulate the conduct of trials. I declined a reelection to the Senate. I was twice nominated for Mayor by the Republicans of Worcester, when the election of their candidate was sure; once by a Citizens' Convention, and once by a Committee authorized to nominate a candidate, and another year urged by prominent and influential citizens to accept such a nomination. But I preferred my profession. I never had any desire or taste for executive office, and I doubt if I had much capacity for it. When Charles Allen declined reelection to Congress, in 1852, I have no doubt I could have succeeded him if I had been willing, although I was but twenty-six years old, only a year past the Constitutional age. As I found my
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162  
163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   172   173   174   175   176   177   178   179   180   181   182   183   184   185   186   187   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

justify

 

evidence

 

authority

 

declined

 

reelection

 

killing

 

candidate

 

determine

 
judges
 

suppose


homicide

 

opinion

 
regulate
 
trials
 

nominated

 

Senate

 

conduct

 

dissenting

 

admirable

 

Reports


Constitutional
 

nomination

 

preferred

 
accept
 

citizens

 

influential

 

Charles

 

capacity

 

desire

 

profession


Supreme

 

office

 

executive

 
prominent
 

Citizens

 
twenty
 

Worcester

 
election
 
Convention
 

succeeded


Congress
 

Committee

 
authorized
 

nominate

 

Republicans

 

obliged

 

conclusion

 

juries

 
revision
 

guilty