Audiencia

“ I shall refrain from bringing forward this claim again, but I assure your Majesty that the Audiencia does more harm than good, as is manifest from the many arguments adduced in regard to this matter; and there is justice there for no one, except when it suits the pleasure or convenience of some auditor or auditors, because the more care is exercised to make them administer justice, the more they pervert it when they wish to, using the freedom to vote which belongs to them. ”

“ At the inspection of the prison of the town or city the alcaldes-in-ordinary thereof shall be seated near the auditors.
26. Item: We command that the president and auditors of our Audiencia shall be present on every day that is not a holiday, in the court-rooms, to hear the statement of cases [relaciones] —three hours on the days when cases are not heard [no de audiencia] , and four hours on days when hearings are given [de audiencia] , according to the rules of our audiencias of Valladolid and Granada. ”

“ The exercise of these functions was assigned respectively to the audiencia as a body, and to the senior magistrate, individually. While an effort was made to insure the fair and equal participation of all in government in case of a vacancy, the senior magistrate assumed the position and honors of the executive, though not granted all the governor’s powers.26 In the functions and duties of administration all the magistrates were to participate. ”

“ Records of thousands of cases exist to show the different [106] kinds of suits tried judicially in the audiencia. Civil and criminal matters came up in the tribunal as in all other courts of law, and hence, as such, merit only passing attention. Among civil cases possibly the most typical were those relating to encomiendas. ”

“ If there are no such clerks, our said Audiencia in the interim during which there are no official commissioners of examination [receptores] [5] shall appoint therefor a suitable person.
18. Item: Our auditors in the exercise of civil and criminal jurisdiction shall receive no fees, or fines, or amercements, or anything under color of charges for sitting as assessors to the judges. The fines which they lay in cases where the law assigns any fine to the judge shall be for our exchequer and treasury, and for no other person. ”

“ Item: We ordain that the appeals taken from decisions for plaintiff or defendant in pecuniary suits, and in suits involving only private interests, when said decisions are pronounced by those who report to the governors and corregidors of the district of our said Audiencia, shall go before it; but as for all other matters heard by such judges, and as for the results of secret investigation, they shall go before our council of the Yndias. ”

“ A new executive, until familiar with the duties of his station, was always glad to seek the advice and assistance of the oidores, meanwhile permitting the audiencia to assume many functions which belonged to him as governor. A new governor was gracious, and agreeable to all, and we find that most of the favorable comments made concerning governors by magistrates, prelates, and officials were pronounced when the environment was new to them or to the governor. ”

“ But what are we to think of a procedure under which an official is to be tried, not in a court by a jury of his peers and upon the testimony of witnesses sworn to tell the truth, but in the newspapers, on the street corners, and at political meetings? ”

“ Let us first consider the nature of the tribunal.
The supreme constituted authority—not only of affairs in this life but in the ordering of all the future existences that man has conceived—is Public Opinion. Public opinion is the decree of human nature determined in impenetrable secrecy, enforced with ceremonious and bewildering circumlocution. It is thus double-natured. The organized public opinion that we see, hear, feel and obey is the costumed officialism of human nature, through ages of custom charged with enforcing upon individuals the demands of the many. ”

“ Then again a trumpet was heard, but the trumpet of a mighty archangel; and then would roll away thick clouds and vapors. Again the audience, but another audience, was assembled; again the tribunal was established; again the court was set; but a tribunal and a court—how different to her! That had been composed of men seeking indeed for truth, but themselves erring and fallible creatures; the witnesses had been full of lies, the judges of darkness. ”

“ The Chamber of Audience, as they call it, is the court of justice, where the Right-herrs, who are in the nature of sheriffs, do sit to despatch and determine the causes of the citizens; and if the cause exceed the value of a hundred dollars, an appeal lies to the Senate, as it doth also in all causes criminal. ”

“ So long as public opinion remains, and the whole appearances of the times give promise that it [249] will continue to gather strength rather than to decay—it is a tribunal to which none but those who have a wish to stand well with the public will be disposed to appeal ”

“ They are gamblers in evidence, most of them. They take their chances as the cases go on; some of them know the jury—one or two is enough; some are learned in the law—more learned, often, than the prosecutor, who is a Government appointee with political backers, and now and then one of them knows the Judge, who is also a political appointee and occasionally has his party to care for. All are valuable in an election, and a few of them are honest. ”

“ In a court of justice, the audience are impartial; they really wish to sift the statements and know what the truth is. And in the examination of witnesses there usually leap out, quite unexpectedly, three or four stubborn words or phrases which are the pith and fate of the business, which sink into the ear of all parties, and stick there, and determine the cause. ”

“ To this exalted tribunal I look with confidence for a display of that dignified impartiality, which will do credit to their elevated situation, and reflect honor on their country. You will raise yourselves, I am convinced, above the common level of human prejudices, personal or political, and will suffer no considerations but those which are perfectly correct to be blended with your inquiries or mingled with your decisions. ”

“ In the hearing and judging of said cases, either civil or criminal, the decision shall be whatever meets the approval of the majority; and should they be equally divided, two or three of the judges shall choose, impartially and in whatever manner may seem best to them, an advocate for the determination of the case upon which they have disagreed. The decision of the majority must be executed, even if this majority consist of but two. ”

“ THE PEOPLE A JURY. This audience is a part of that great jury, who, after the evidence is all in, will decide one way or the other, with an avalanche of snowy ballots, as spotless in their purity as the honest hearts of the voters who cast the verdict into the ballot boxes. ”

“ When a point has been solemnly ruled by the tribunal of the last resort, after full argument and with the assent of all the judges, we have the highest evidence which can be procured in favor of the unwritten law. ”

“ Witnesses are just as necessary for the administration of justice as judges or jurymen, and are entitled to be treated with the same consideration, and their affairs and private lives ought to be held as sacred from the gaze of the public as those of the judges or the jurymen. ”

“ When a trial takes place in full parliament a lord high steward is also appointed, but his powers there are confined to the presidency of the court, all the peers sitting as judges of law as well as of fact. Should the lord high steward be sitting as a court out of parliament he summons a number of peers to attend as a jury, but rules alone on all points of law and practice, the peers present being judges of fact only. ”

“ Has he procured a jury so fitted to his object, as to be ready to bury in oblivion every fault and every crime, every error and every imperfection100 of public men, past, present, and future—and who shall, in addition, silence any dissertation on the theory or principle of legislation? Do, gentlemen, go this length with the prosecutor and then venture on your oaths. I charge you to venture to talk to your families of the venerable liberty of the Press—the protection of the people against the vices of the government. ”

“ The court may provide by rule for a hearing of an oral argument by counsel before said commission: provided, that no cause shall be referred to said commissioners in which they, or any of them, are or have been interested as counsel or otherwise. Sec. 3. Every opinion shall be promptly delivered to the chief justice, who shall lay the same before the court. The court may approve or modify or reject any such opinion. ”

“ The election of proper men for the position [Pg 140] of judge is one of the most important duties of an electorate. Whether the process of the law insures justice and increases public security depends often more on the judge than on the letter of the law. Decisions involving the happiness, rights, and lives of countless people go through the courts of the State. ”

“ What, sir, is a judge in one part of the United States to permit the breach of our laws to go unpunished because they are there unpopular, and in another part to carry them into execution, because there they may be thought wise and salutary? And would you really wish your judges, instead of acting from principle, to court only the applause of their auditors? ”

“ A full hearing is one in which ample opportunity is afforded to all parties to make, by evidence and argument, a showing fairly adequate to establish the propriety or impropriety, from the standpoint of justice and law, of the step asked to be taken. The Commission recognized, and observed, these essentials of a full hearing. ”

“ It may yet happen, in the revolutions of time, that some one of the majority of your committee may be subjected to an unjust and false accusation, which must be submitted to the judgment of twelve men in the jury-box or of one man on the bench; twelve men fresh from the people and warmed with the instinctive sympathies of humanity, or one man, separated from the people by his station and by the habits of a life passed in seclusion and study. ”

“ In law, the judge and jury hold the deciding balance of power. In public opinion, the public relations counsel is judge and jury because through his pleading of a case the public is likely to accede to his opinion and judgment. Therefore, the public relations counsel must maintain an intense scrutiny of his actions, avoiding the propagation of unsocial or otherwise harmful movements or ideas. ”

“ The jury, being informed as to the witness' opportunities to know all the circumstances, and of the reasons upon which he rests his statement as to the ultimate general fact of sanity or insanity are able to test the accuracy or soundness of the opinion expressed, and thus, by using the ordinary means for the ascertainment of truth, reach the ends of substantial justice. ”

“ The whole which we gain therefore from the Board of Inquiry is—that what we barely suspected is ripened into certainty—and that on all, which we assuredly knew and declared without needing that any tribunal should lend us its sanction, no effort has been made at denial, or disguise, or palliation. ”

“ We get, in this lumbering chronicle, not a cohesive and luminous picture, but a dull, photographic representation of the whole tedious process, beginning with an account of the political obligations of the judge and district attorney, proceeding to a consideration of the habits of mind of each of the twelve jurymen, and ending with a summary of the majority and minority opinions of the court of appeals, and a discussion of the motives, ideals, traditions, prejudices, sympathies and chicaneries behind them, each and severally. ”

“ With such a case as yours, my Lord, it is not sufficient that you have the court at your devotion, unless you can find means to corrupt or intimidate the jury. The collective body of the people form that jury, and from their decision there is but one appeal. ”

“ Should there be a bench, a tribunal, an assembly of wise and learned judges whose hearts are inaccessible to hatred, envy, hope, fear, prejudice, and the impositions of false witnesses, there would be little occasion for the exertions of eloquence and all that might seem requisite would be only to amuse the ear with the harmony of cadence. ”

“ The attention of the court, the jury, lawyers and witnesses should be concentrated upon the trial itself and ought not to be divided with the television or broadcast audience who for the most part have merely the interest of curiosity in the proceedings. ”

“ In what part of our laws or constitution is it written that a judge shall not speak on politics to a grand jury?—shall not advance, in a charge from the bench, those arguments against a public measure which it must be admitted he might properly employ on any other occasion? ”

“ They were not successful; and some may be ready to ask, “Why then publish them?” It may be sufficient to reply, “I choose to do so;” “I choose to appeal from the award of the Judges to the decision of the public.” A single sentence will explain why I make such an appeal. The gentlemen appointed to act as judges based their decision, according to their published statement, as much upon “suitability for recitation at a public festival,” as upon “literary merit.” ”