Court of honor

“ I bet I can find plenty of authorities to that effect in the library!"
"Of course you can," countered Miss Wiggin. "You can find an authority on any side of any proposition you want to look for. That's why one's own sense of honor is so much more reliable than the law. What is the law, anyhow? It's what some judge says is the law—until he's reversed. Do you suppose I'd surrender my own private ideas of honor to a casual ruling from a judge who very likely hadn't the remotest idea of what I think is honorable?"
"You'll be jailed for contempt before you get through!" Tutt warned her. ”

“ The honor and the character of the nation are concerned in repressing such irregular ties; and the justice of the court requires that compensation should be made for the injury which the libellants have sustained. ”

“ Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free. ”

“ No one Knight and nobleman may submit to such judgments, which concern this life and honor, judged by a court other than the Court of Justice, just as the Privileges and Procedure of 1615, such ordinances, statutes and judgments; however, that the ransakidid takes place in loco, and no other criminal things, than those who live and honor are concerned, may be drawn. ”

“ Points of honor are too ephemeral to be debated in courts of justice. To do so would be to open the door to all kinds of abuses. Dishonest witnesses would constantly avail themselves of the opportunity to avoid giving evidence. ”

“ A high sense of duty and honor has prompted these details which have for many years been on the eve of publication. It will be worthy of the perusal of The Great because it will serve as a mirror, and they who do not see themselves, or their actions reflected, will not take offence at the unvarnished Picture—it may afford real benefit to the Statesman and Politician, by the ample testimony it gives, that when Justice is perverted, the most lamentable consequences ensue ”

“ In the British House of Lords, when the peers sit to try another peer on a criminal charge or at an impeachment, on the question being put whether the accused be guilty or not, each peer, rising in his place in turn, lays his right hand on his breast and returns his verdict “upon my honour.” As a title of address, “his honour” or “your honour” is applied in the United States of America to all judges, in the United Kingdom only to county court judges. ”

“ Even the commonwealth's attorney could not manage to look wise enough, as he sat there stroking his beard, to deceive anybody into the belief that he knew what was going on. The minutes were very long ones. The excitement soon extended beyond the court house, and everybody in the village was on tiptoe with suppressed curiosity. The court room was full to overflowing when Billy came quietly out of the grand jury's apartment and took his seat in the bar as if nothing out of the ordinary course of affairs had happened. ”

“ That protection of the law had been thrown around the men on trial to see that they should have a fair hearing, and that the jury should render a fair verdict. All evidence that was not competent had been excluded, and, wherever a question of doubt had arisen, His Honor, the judge, exercising his natural instincts of mercy, had solved that doubt for the benefit of the accused. ”

“ I am willing to believe, fellow-citizens of the jury, that you are fully aware of the importance of your own office, of the dignity of this court, of the necessity of its existence, of its activity to protect the honest and inoffensive citizen, against the designing, the unprincipled, and the violent. Such protection we know to be absolutely binding upon every community claiming to be civilized; we know that without it no state of society, at all worthy of the dignity of human nature, at all worthy of the dignity of freemen, can exist ”

“ We hold in proper respect and reverence these sacred depositories of the people's rights. 'The criminal, and the judge who is to award his punishment, form a solemn sight. They are both men; both the 'children of an Universal Father, and sons of immortality;' the one so sunken in his state as to be disowned by man; the other as far removed by excellence from the majority of mankind.' No function can be more honorable, more sacred, or more beneficial, than that of an upright judge. ”

“ Genuine respect, which alone can lend true dignity to our judicial establishment, will be engendered, not by the fear of unlimited authority, but by the firm administration of the law through those institutionalized procedures which have been worked out over the centuries. ”

“ We have seen a government, in the very moment of triumph and revenge, submitting itself to the authority of a court of law. A just and independent sentence has been pronounced—a sentence worthy of the ancient renown of that magistracy to which belong the noblest recollections of French history—which, in an age of persecutors, produced L'Hopital,—which, in an age of courtiers, produced D'Aguesseau,—which, in an age of wickedness and madness, exhibited to mankind a pattern of every virtue in the life and in the death of Malesherbes. ”

“ To that tribunal it is Your Honor’s duty to direct such cases as seem too grave for Your Honor to decide. Then the evidence appears to indicate that the balance of probabilities is in favor of finding the accursed guilty of the act. The Commonwealth advances no statements as to probable guilt. Your Honor’s duty is before you. Let us go back to the pictures. They are before you. Such was the scene presented four weeks ago this morning. What are they? One is a man retired from business, of simple and frugal habits, and so far as we know without an enemy in the world. ”

“ Monsieur, when one has the honor to be a magistrate—when one has accepted the mission of judging one's fellows, one is bound more than all others to observe temperance and to consider one's dignity in all things. What may not affect the honor of the private citizen does affect the honor of the judge. ”

“ Those courts are epitomes of human life, and their walls, within their bounded space, contain beings full of the passions, infirmities, resentments, self-deceits, self-interests, fears, hopes, triumphs, and defeats, incident to our common nature, and the proofs and results of which are there painfully brought before us.
A court of justice may be likened to a stage, the principal performers on which are the barristers; and happiest are they who have the most frequent opportunities of moving the feelings, and influencing the convictions, of that respectable audience—a British jury. ”

“ From a pretence or affectation of extraordinary purity and excellence of character, their word of honour is the sanction under which these high courts, in other countries, have given their sentence—But with us, like the other judges of the union, like the rest of the people, of which they are never to forget they are a part, it is required that they be on oath. ”

“ By this celebrated ordinance a supreme court of honour was established, composed of the Marshals of France. They were bound, on taking the office, to give to every one who brought a well-founded complaint before them, such reparation as would satisfy the justice of the case. Should any gentleman against whom complaint was made refuse to obey the mandate of the court of honour, he might be punished by fine and imprisonment; and when that was not possible, by reason of his absenting himself from the kingdom, his estates might be confiscated till his return. ”

“ In their sentence, therefore, the judges were necessarily obliged to attend, not to the nature of those offenses, but to the reputation of the state.
Some of our magistrates, observing this, framed a law (and its excellence is undeniable) expressly forbidding any man to be honored with a crown whose conduct had not yet been submitted to the legal examination. ”

“ Another man, no scoundrel,--on the contrary! a man of honour of the sort whose name is Legion,--would not have hesitated for a moment to preside in Court in order to obtain by his authority as Chief Justice, the mildest possible sentence. ”

“ Gentlemen, I desire in all that I have to say to keep or be kept within what is regular and seemly, and above all to utter nothing wanting in respect for the court; but I do say, and I do protest, that I have not got trial by jury according to the spirit and meaning of the constitution. It is as representatives of the general community, not as representatives of the crown officials, the constitution supposes you to sit in that box. If you do not fairly represent the community, and if you are not empanelled indifferently in that sense, you are no jury in the spirit of the constitution. ”

“ And if I could have faith that any prayers of mine, could furnish me other aid, I would ask for the tongues of angels,—I would invoke the genius of liberty to inspire my lips,—when I attempt to speak in behalf of this great birth-right and best privilege of all who have lived within the protecting influence of the English common law! The trial by jury, whenever and wherever it originated, sprung from the people. ”

“ Was not one of them invited to dinner, by a gentleman of the first rank, during his stay in the West Indies, and did he not so conduct himself before one of the gentleman's daughters, that his royal highness was under the necessity of [379] making a precipitate retreat? Yet this outrage upon decency was only noticed by one fearless historian! And amongst the courtiers, where is morality to be found? Yet these individuals are the judges, as well as the jury, and are even empowered to assault, insult, and reproach the consort of the first magistrate, their sovereign the king! ”

“ One day in a court of assizes, the next at that of a king, on the morrow before a civil tribunal, the illustrious inheritor of the marquisate of La Pailleterie parades his graces, jogs the world's memory as to the fact of his existence, and bids it read his books and bow before his footstool. ”

“ I must either protest against this mode of trial, or by tacitly consenting to it, suffer my honour to be sacrificed. No innocence can secure the accused if the Judges and Jurors be chosen by the accuser; and if I were tacitly to submit to a tribunal of this description, I should be instrumental in my own dishonour.
On these grounds I protest against this species of trial. I demand a trial in a court where the Jurors are taken impartially from amongst the people, and where the proceedings are open and fair. Such a trial I court, and to no other will I willingly submit. ”

“ The tribunal is therefore the tribunal of love, and the court is the court of love. He who shall judge mankind is He who judges Peter and the woman who was a sinner, He of whose tenderness and sympathy we have assurance in a hundred acts of mercy, pity, and magnanimity. ”

“ Lord President—Sir, this is the third time that you have publicly disowned this Court, and put an affront upon it. How far you have preserved the privileges of the people, your actions have spoke it; but truly, Sir, men's intentions ought to be known by their actions; you have written your meaning in bloody characters throughout the whole kingdom. But, Sir, you understand the pleasure of the Court.—Clerk, Record the Default.—And, Gentlemen, you that took charge of the Prisoner, take him back again. ”

“ While courts were provided, the power to accuse the humblest human being living under the American flag of a grave offense and bring him before a court for trial was reserved to the people themselves. ”

“ There is a principle of reciprocity known to Courts administering inter-national law; but I trust it is a reciprocity of benevolence, and that the angry passions which produce revenge and retaliation will never exert their influence on the administration of justice. Dismal would be the state of the world, and melancholy the office of a judge, if all the evils which the perfidy and injustice of power inflict on individual man, were to be reflected from the tribunals which profess peace and good will to all mankind. ”

“ The objection that a state could not submit its honour, for example, to the sentence of a judge is as little entitled to recognition as is the claim, made by those dominant classes which in many states glorify the duel, that men of honour could not settle an affair of their honour by means of a judge's decree. ”

“ Many justiciaries were appointed throughout the kingdom. No one might hold this office without the authorisation of the crown. He strove to make his officials as righteous as he was himself. He himself came before his courts. So great was his love of justice, that he would rather lose his cause than win it if he were in the wrong. No advocates were allowed to practise without an examination by the judicial bench. They were obliged to take an oath that they would allege nothing against their conscience. The court furnished widows, orphans, and the poor with champions free of expense. ”

“ The usual insignia of the kingly dignity, the scepter and the throne, are only the signs of judicial power, as it were, promoted one degree higher, and can be historically traced up to the judge’s bench and staff. The crown alone remains as the peculiar and exclusive symbol of the highest earthly dignity. ”

“ Why, if your Honor please, the very method of our extermination, the deep damnation of its taking off, appeals to your Honor’s sense of justice, of rectitude, and of honor. A judge may also be an unjust man. ”

“ Carlile: My lord, I feel that I do not stand in a Court of Justice; but that I stand in an Inquisition, where I am prevented from going into my defence.
The Chief Justice: You stand in a Court where the Christian religion must be observed as the law of the land, and where no man is allowed to revile it; you stand in a Court willing and most anxious to give you the full benefit of every fair, legal and decorous defence. ”