Accusative case

“ But in this case a man ought not to accuse the opposite party, nor to attempt to transfer the criminality to another, but he ought to show that that has not and never has had any reference whatever to himself, either in respect of power or duty. And in this kind of cause there is this new circumstance, that the prosecutor often works up a fresh accusation out of the topics employed, to remove the guilt from the accused person. ”

“ It is the duty of the jury to enter upon the consideration of each circumstance proven, having in their minds the presumption that the defendants, and each of them, are innocent, and in considering such fact or circumstance, they should apply to it the presumption of innocence, and if such fact or circumstance, when considered in connection with all the evidence in the case, can be explained consistently with the innocence of the accused, it is their duty so to explain it. ”

“ Whether they have abused, or misused their privileges, is an inquiry more proper for the legislature to institute, under the provisions of the 20th section of the law, than for this court to make, in an application for a summary injunction; if we could interfere at all, on such an allegation, it would only be on a clear departure from the route, or a palpable abuse of their discretion, in a manner that could admit of no colorable excuse; such a case we think has not been made out by the complainants. ”

“ This presumption remains with the defendant until such time, in the progress of the case, that you are satisfied of the guilt beyond a reasonable doubt,'-and in not giving the following instruction, asked by defendant: 'Every man is presumed to be innocent until he is proved guilty, and this legal presumption of innocence is to be regarded by the jury in this case as matter of evidence, to the benefit of which the party is entitled. ”

“ Where the case is not within any statute, the general rule is that if an accomplice, when examined as a witness by the public prosecutor, discloses fully and fairly the guilt of himself and his associates, he will not be prosecuted for the offence disclosed ”

“ But the charge, in substance, instructed the jury to consider all the evidence and all the circumstances of the case, and, if a reasonable doubt existed, to acquit. If the accused wished specific charges as to the weight in law to be attached to testimony introduced to establish an alibi, it was his privilege to request the court to give them. ”

“ Such evidence would be obviously incompetent in the principal case, since the very testimony that would tend to show probable cause and acquit him of malicious motives would also tend to the predjudice of the defendant, and would be inadmissible against him. ”

“ From this fact of absconding, we may infer the fact of guilt. This is a presumption of fact, or an argument of a fact from a fact.'
'Flight by a defendant is always relevant evidence when offered by the prosecution, and that it is a silent admission by the defendant that he is unwilling or unable to face the case against him. It is in some sense, feeble or strong, as the case may be, a confession ”

“ As before, a person could also be brought to trial by the accusation of the person wronged. If the accused still denied the charge after the accuser testified and the matter investigated by inquiries and interrogation and then analyzed, trial by combat was held, unless the accuser was over the age of sixty or maimed, in which case the accused went to the ordeal. ”

“ Innocence is presumed in a criminal case until the contrary is proved; or, in other words, reasonable doubt of guilt is in some cases of the kind ground of acquittal, where, if the probative force of the presumption of innocence were excluded, there might be a conviction ”

“ But, if a person arrested to await the finding of an indictment may remove the case before an indictment is found, the accusation is not framed and presented by the officers and the grand jury of the state whose criminal law has been violated, but by the officers and grand jury of another government, and the circuit court of the United States has not only to try the defendant, but also to charge its own grand jury as to the accusation against him on behalf of the state ”

“ Following in the traces of the civil law, there were three forms of action in criminal cases—accusatio, denunciatio, and inquisitio. In accusatio there was an accuser who formally inscribed himself as responsible and was subject to the talio in case of failure. Denunciatio was the official act of the public officer, such as the testis synodalis or archdeacon, who summoned the court to take action against offenders coming within his official knowledge. ”

“ I have known applications of this kind, after conviction, upon charges involving professional misconduct; but we should be cautious of putting parties in a situation where, by answering, they might furnish a case against themselves, on an indictment to be afterwards preferred. On an application calling upon an attorney to answer the matters of an affidavit, it is not usual to grant the rule if an indictable offence is charged. ”

“ Nor does this record justify a holding that this inquisition adopted the mantle of secrecy and barred counsel from the room out of tender solicitude for the reputation of the defendants in this contempt case. Doubtless the defendants' lawyer and the defendants themselves are at least as capable and perhaps as much interested in saving their reputations as the judge who is sending them to jail. ”

“ See note 1, supra.↑ 'Where a statute such as that which defines the crime charged in this case denounces an act and a status or condition, either of which separately as well as collectively, constitute the criminal offense charged, an accusatory pleading which accuses the defendant of having committed the act and of being of the status or condition so denounced by the statute, is deemed supported if the proof shows that the defendant is guilty of any one or more of the offenses thus specified. ”

“ To say, in case of a contempt such as is recited in the order below, that the offender was accused, tried, adjudged to be guilty, and imprisoned, without previous notice of the accusation against him, and without an opportunity to be heard, is nothing more than an argument or protest against investing any court, however, exalted, or however extensive its general jurisdiction, with the power of proceeding summarily, without further proof or trial, for direct contempts committed in its presence. ”

“ Recurring to remarks concerning the legal necessity of obtaining a plea to the indictment or information, in order, possibly, to show the presence of the accused, and speculating upon that as the origin of the theory of the common law requiring the personal presence of the accused in order to give the court jurisdiction to try the case, and the proof of the corpus delicti in order to convict, it seems132 proper that a similar course of procedure and reasoning should prevail in cases of heresy, an offence which dealt so largely with matters of belief ”

“ In joint trials, however, when the admissible confession of one defendant inculpates another defendant, the confession is never deleted from the case and the jury is expected to perform the overwhelming task of considering it in determining the guilt or innocence of the declarant and then of ignoring it in determining the guilt or innocence of any codefendants of the declarant. ”

“ But before you leave, let me make a few remarks on this case, which in my judgment are called for by the circumstances, and which may appear again, in consequence of many parties being similarly situated. Although the jury has acquitted you, such acquittal must not be considered a license for others to go and do likewise. Where your case is one of necessity, another of a like nature may be caused through dishonesty. Your act is not applauded by thinking minds, nor did the jury intend to convey the impression that in acquitting you they considered you had performed a very meritorious act. ”

“ In criminal cases, if an accuser offered battle, the defendant was forced either to accept it or to confess his guilt, unless he could prove an alibi, or unless the accuser was himself notoriously guilty of the crime in question, and the accusation was evidently a mere device to shift the guilt to the shoulders of another ”

“ If one single fact is proved by a preponderance of the evidence which is inconsistent with the guilt of a defendant, this is sufficient to raise a reasonable doubt as to his guilt and entitles him to an acquittal. ”

“ Just as we do not convict when there is a reasonable doubt of guilt, we should not permit the prosecution to introduce into evidence a defendant's confession when there is a reasonable doubt that it was the product of his free and rational choice. ”

“ A claim is facially plausible when the factual content allows the court to reasonably infer that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged. Id. When considering a motion to dismiss, the court must accept as true all of the factual allegations contained in the complaint. ”

“ The trouble with the case is that we are not warranted in assuming that the allegations are true. The record contains an agreed statement called a brief, in which it appears that the defendant made a motion to quash on the grounds stated, and in which it is said that the defendant offered to introduce testimony to support these grounds. ”

“ But for their right to judge of the law, and the justice of the law, juries would be no protection to an accused person, even as to matters of fact; for, if the government can dictate to a jury any law whatever, in a criminal case, it can certainly dictate to them the laws of evidence. ”

“ But, my lords, I am of opinion that the murderer would not be indemnified by this bill, since he did not commit the crime by the direction of the person whom he is supposed to accuse; nor would it have any necessary connexion with his conduct, but might be suppressed in the accusation, without any diminution of the force of the evidence. A man will not be suffered to introduce his accusation with an account of all the villanies of his whole life, but will be required to confine his testimony to the affair upon which he is examined. ”

“ The danger that matters pertaining to the defendant's guilt will infect the jury's findings of fact bearing upon voluntariness, as well as its conclusion upon that issue itself, is sufficiently serious to preclude their unqualified acceptance upon review in this Court, regardless of whether there is or is not sufficient other evidence to sustain a finding of guilt. ”

“ The question is, can the court, without the allegation of either party, and without evidence offered, decide the facts, that he is the same person; that the act pardoned is the same with the one now charged ”

“ Nothing could more plainly illustrate the wisdom of the rule that the accuser should not be the judge of the accusation. The judge very naturally felt great indignation at the lawless proceedings of the mob in hanging the prisoner, and, as he states, had heard reports inculpating the petitioner as a participant therein. His indignation, whether arising from such reported participation or otherwise, must have possessed him when he had the petitioner before him, for nothing else can explain the extraordinary conclusion he reached upon the testimony taken. ”

“ Where there is a verdict of not guilty on one count and a verdict of guilt on another, and the former necessarily determines that the evidence failed to establish a fact which is an essential ingredient of the offense charged in the other count, then, in determining whether the evidence was sufficient to sustain the finding of guilt, the court must exclude from consideration the fact so found in favor of the accused. ”

“ A sporting theory of justice might assume that if the suppressed confession had been used at the first trial, the judge's ruling that it was not admissible on the issue of innocence or guilt might have been flouted by the jury just as might have been done if the court had first admitted a confession and then stricken it from the record. ”

“ For the tort of malicious prosecution, courts emphasized the “necessity” of both the “allegation” and “proof” of probable cause, in light of the public interest “that criminals should be brought to justice.” ”

“ If there be but a trial of five marks at Common Law, a witness must be deposed. Good my lords, let my Accuser come face to face, and be deposed.
Lord Chief-Justice—You have no law for it: God forbid any man should accuse himself upon his oath!
Attorney—The law presumes, a man will not accuse himself to accuse another. You are an odious man, for Cobham thinks his cause the worse that you are in it. Now you shall hear of some stirs to be raised in Scotland. ”

“ Of course, we must in this, as in all cases, begin the inquiry with the presumption that the defendant is innocent, and that the burden of proof to make out the guilt devolves on the plaintiff. In the construction of a penal statute, it is well settled, also, that all reasonable doubts concerning its meaning ought to operate in favor of the respondent. ”

“ The intent of this injunction is, either that they should not suggest to the accused an immediate answer that might acquit him, or that they think it contrary to nature that a man should accuse himself. ”