King's Bench Court

“ If the repeated adjudications of the king's bench, enlightened and adorned, as it then was, by the transcendent genius of Chief Justice Holt, were known to be erroneous, and contrary to former precedents, why did not the merchants, always a wealthy class of the community, make a different appeal, and before the lords in parliament, reverse and annul the erroneous judgment of the king's bench? ”

“ Practically all of the National and many of the State judges were highly learned in the law, and, of course, drew their inspiration from British precedents and the British bench. Indeed, some of them were more British than they were American. [91] "Let a stranger go into our courts," wrote Tyler, "and he [Pg 29] would almost believe himself in the Court of the King's Bench." [92]
This conduct of the National Judiciary furnished Jefferson with another of those "issues" of which that astute politician knew how to make such effective use. ”

“ It superintends all civil corporations in the kingdom. It commands magistrates and others to do what their duty requires in every case, where there is no other specific remedy. It protects the liberty of the subject by speedy and summary interposition,' &c. It is from this 'high and transcendant' jurisdiction that the court of king's bench derives the power to issue the writ of mandamus, as appears from the same volume of Blackstone's Commentaries, p. ”

“ And certainly, even in England, the King's Bench never claimed or exercised the power to issue a mandamus to an inferior court of record, commanding it to reverse its judgment, in a matter where the law authorized it to judge. ”

“ No case in England appears to have been more thoroughly examined than that of Somersett. The judgment pronounced-141- by Lord Mansfield was the judgment of the Court of King's Bench. The cause was argued at great length, and with great ability, by Hargrave and others, who stood among the most eminent counsel in England. ”

“ Prisoners are brought thither by Habeas Corpus, and the court is counsel for the prisoner. They examine the legality of the commitment, and must remit him, or bail him, or remand him. Remanding him, or requiring bail, is approving the commitment. Pitt proposed to add, “in which court (the King’s Bench) it does not appear that the validity of general warrants has been brought in question.” Charles Yorke said he agreed with Pitt, but would have the sentence run thus, “although hath been frequently produced to, and never been questioned by, the King’s Bench.” ”

“ I have not been able to trace any attempt to assert its privileges later than 1735, when in the July of that 203year the Court of Common Council brought an action against Daniel Watson, for opening a shop and vending shoes in the Blackfriars without being free of the City. The court of King’s Bench gave it in favour of the City. The sheriffs could arrest here many years before” (Cunningham) . ”

“ If there are struts, supporting the main rafters, they often bear upon the foot of the king-post. Called also crown- post.
King's Bench (?) . (Law) Formerly, the highest court of common law in England; -- so called because the king used to sit there in person. It consisted of a chief justice and four puisne, or junior, justices. During the reign of a queen it was called the Queen's Bench. Its jurisdiction was transferred by the judicature acts of 1873 and 1875 to the high court of justice created by that legislation. ”

“ It was asserted that after his second trial 'the high sheriff, foreman of jury, and divers others of the justices gentlemen then present of the same jury died within a fortnight.' The local authorities consequently petitioned for his removal to King's Bench prison in London. He was taken thither, and was apparently kept there in easy confinement for some fifteen years. His fame as an astrologer rapidly spread through London, and he was allowed to receive his numerous clients in the prison. ”

“ No one would pretend that an attempt to control the deliberation of the bench, by the apprehension of violence, and subject the judges to the power of those who are, or ought to be, subordinate to them, is compatible with professional duty, or the judicial independence so indispensable to the administration of justice. And an enormity of the sort, practiced but on a single judge, would be an offence as much against the court, which is bound to protect all its members, as if it had been repeated on the person of each of them, because the consequences to suitors and the public would be the same ”

“ We have such a multiplicity of courts that it has become common, and judges are so often chosen for purely political reasons, even for the Supreme Court of the United States, that the lawyer of professional dignity and self-respect hesitates to enter into the competition. Thus the bench tends to be114 filled with duffers, and many of them are also scoundrels, as the frequent complaints against their extortions and tyrannies testify. The English bench, as everyone knows, is immensely better: the fact is often noted with lamentation by American lawyers. ”

“ No law can deprive your honors of your places here during life or good behavior. No President can remove a judge from this bench; and thank God it is so. No law of Congress can remove a judge from this bench. I know there have been laws of Congress that have removed United States judges from lower benches than this, but their validity has been always questioned. But no Congress has ever dared to pass a law to remove a judge from this bench, or to abolish this bench, or change the structure of the Supreme Court of the United States. ”

“ When, therefore, it was conceded on the argument that if the affair at Lathrop had taken place in the court-room during the sitting of the court, the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court would be unquestionable, it is difficult for me to see why the whole question of federal jurisdiction was not embraced in that concession. Assassinating a judge on the bench would no more obstruct and defeat public justice than assassinating him on his way to the bench. In each case he is proceeding in the line of official duty imposed on him by law and his official oath. ”

“ That in the death of Judge Willson the Bench has lost a learned, upright and fearless Judge, ever doing right and equity among the suitors of his Court, fearing only the errors and mistakes to which a fallible human judgment is ever liable. Urbanity and courtesy to the older members of the Bar, protecting and loving kindness to its younger members, and deep and abiding interest in the reputation of all, were among his distinguishing characteristics. ”

“ Visitors to the Law Courts to-day should on no account fail to look in at King's Bench XIII., which is one of the cosiest of our beautiful Courts of Justice. Here will be continued the scintillating contest between Sir Anthony Prius, K.C., and that rising young barrister, Mr. Terry Blee-Smart, K.C. It is more than probable that the cross-examination of the humorous butcher will continue through most of the day. ”

“ The singular hardship of the position of the sheriffs excited general sympathy: if they obeyed the House of Commons, which prohibited them from paying over to Stockdale the damages which they had received for him, the Court of Queen's Bench would be bound to attach them for disobedience to its order. If they obeyed the Queen's Bench, the House would imprison them for breach of privilege. And the national feeling is always in favor of the strictly defined authority of the courts of law, rather than of the somewhat indefinite claims of Parliament to interpret, and even to make, privilege. ”

“ He had always held strong views on the question of costs and of legal procedure, and shortly before his elevation to the bench he had served on a royal commission appointed to inquire into the former subject. In 1895 he persuaded the other judges of the Queen's Bench, in which Lord Russell of Killowen [q. v. Suppl. I] had just been appointed chief justice, to assent to the formation of a special list for commercial cases to be heard in a particular court, presided over by the same judge sitting continuously and with a free hand as to his own procedure. ”

“ It is an hortation which, by whomsoever delivered, would tend to dispirit the bravest and most honest of witnesses. The presence of a judge is always, as I have said, oppressive. The presence of three is trebly so. Yet not a score of them serried along the bench could have outdone in oppressiveness Sir Charles Russell. He alone, among the counsel I have seen, was an exception to the rule that by a judge every one in court is levelled. On the bench, in his last years, he was not notably more predominant than he ever had been. ”

“ The leaders at the bar therefore seldom consent to go upon the bench unless they have property enough to ensure their comfortable support after they leave it, without returning to the labors of the bar.
This is one of those evils which carry in some sort their own antidote. The lawyers, as a body, are always anxious for their own sake to have an able and independent bench. They do not wish to trust their causes, when they come before a court of last resort for final disposition, to men of inferior capacity and standing. ”

“ The case was, of course, decided against them, and Allen was advised, by the king's attorney-general, to go home and make the best terms he could with his new masters, remarking, that "might generally makes right." The reply of the mountaineer was brief and significant: "The gods of the valley are not the gods of the hills;" by which he meant that the agents of the New York government would find themselves baffled at Bennington, should they undertake to enforce the decision of the court, against the settlers there. ”

“ In Atlas Roofing, supra, 430 U.S., at 458, 97 S.Ct., at 1270, we noted that Congress may effectively supplant a common-law cause of action carrying with it a right to a jury trial with a statutory cause of action shorn of a jury trial right if that statutory cause of action inheres in, or lies against, the Federal Government in its sovereign capacity. Our case law makes plain, however, that the class of "public rights" whose adjudication Congress may assign to administrative agencies or courts of equity sitting without juries is more expansive than Atlas Roofing 's discussion suggests. ”

“ In 1859 he was raised to the bench, and for a period of nine years sat as a puisné judge in the Superior Court of Lower Canada. In 1868 he was promoted to the Queen’s Bench, on the retirement of Justice Aylwin. His reputation as a judge stands high. His natural talents, united to his vast knowledge and graceful elocution, have made him one of the most instructive and agreeable persons to listen to whenever he has a judgment to deliver in the Court of Appeals or a charge to make in the Criminal Court. ”

“ I can assure your Lordship," wrote Bent, "that the comfort and happiness of any Judge-Advocate, nay, even the proper discharge of his duty, must depend entirely upon the personal character of the person in whose hands the executive power of the Colony happens to be vested."
The duties of the office he considered too heavy for one man, and in many ways inconsistent with one another. Thus in the Criminal Court he acted as judge in cases for which he had himself prepared the indictment, and in which he had the conduct of the prosecution. ”

“ A State may, of course, distribute the functions of its judicial machinery as it sees fit. The decisions relied upon, however, furnish no reason for selecting the judge rather than the jury to decide this single affirmative defense in the negligence action. They simply reflect a policy, cf. Crowell v. Benson, 285 U.S. 22, 52 S.Ct. 285, 76 L.Ed. 598, that administrative determination of 'jurisdictional facts' should not be final but subject to judicial review. ”

“ I cannot doubt that, even upon the view of the evidence taken by the District Court, Congress might have made Benson liable to Knudsen for the injury which he sustained.
Sixth. Even if the constitutional power of Congress to provide compensation is limited to cases in which the employer meployee relation exists, I see no basis for a contention that the denial of the right to a trial de novo upon the issue of employment is in any manner subversive of the independence of the federal judicial power. ”

“ For centuries the King’s Bench judges have worked off their natural irrelevancy in charging the grand juries at assize towns to the great benefit of themselves and the local papers. This national safeguard, this barrier between judicial irrelevancy and the public at large, should not be removed in a careless spirit. Our forefathers knew a thing or two. The grand jury is really a sound instrument of constitutional mechanics. It is the safety valve for the blowing off of judicial steam.
Lawyers and judges are certainly held in higher esteem to-day than they were in the past. ”

“ I will for ever, at all hazards, assert the dignity, independence and integrity of the English bar, without which impartial justice, the most valuable part of the British Constitution, can have no existence. From the moment that any advocate can be permitted to say that he will or will not stand between the Crown and the subject arraigned in the court where he daily sits to practice, from that moment the liberties of England are at an end. If the advocate refuses to defend from what he may think of the charge or of the defence, he assumes the character of the judge ”