Field trial

“ Due process of law required a specific description of all the offenses for which the defendant was to be put on trial. Proceeding without it was not due process of law; and, in my judgment, no legislation of Vermont could make it so. And it is to me a surprising doctrine that a party can be tried for and convicted of a criminal offense not alleged against him, and afterwards, when the sentence is attempted to be enforced, can be prevented from taking the objection that no offense was charged in the accusation, because no defect of that kind was urged at the trial. ”

“ And, indeed, if the law be that a Circuit Court of the United States, upon whisperings in the ear of one of its judges on the streets, or upon information derived from rumor, or in some other irregular way, that an attorney has committed a public offence, having no relation to the discharge of his professional duties, can summon him to answer for the offence in advance of trial or conviction and summarily punish him, it is time the law was changed by statute. Such a power cannot be safely intrusted to any tribunal. ”

“ If a doubt exists as to the statement of counsel, the court will withhold its directions, as where the evidence is conflicting, and leave the matter to the determination of the jury.
In the trial of a cause the admissions of counsel, as to matters to be proved, are constantly received and acted upon. They may dispense with proof of facts for which witnesses would otherwise be called. ”

“ Several reasons are presented against the power of the court to direct a verdict upon the statement of the facts which the plaintiff proposed to prove, that might be more properly urged against its exercise in particular cases. The power of the court to act in the disposition of a trial upon facts conceded by counsel is as plain as its power to act upon the evidence produced. The question in either case must be whether the facts upon which it is called to instruct the jury be clearly established. ”

“ The attorney is entitled to a day in court, on which to make defence, and the trial is to be conducted like all other trials in summary proceedings at the common law, and the attorney convicted only if the proofs shall establish or conform to the allegations. [5]
In numerous cases, [6] the judgments or orders removing the attorneys from their offices, having been made without 'due process of law,' were declared to be illegal and void (and were also reversed) , by courts having a superintending or appellate jurisdiction. ”

“ In none of the laws which have been passed by congress to give effect to treaties of the kind has there been any attempt to require indictment by a grand jury before one can be called upon to answer for a public offense of that grade committed in those countries, or to secure a jury on the trial of the offense. ”

“ Citizens of the United States have been tried for serious offenses before these officers without preliminary indictment or a common-law jury, and convicted and punished. These trials have been authorized by the regulations, orders, and decrees of ministers, and it must be presumed that the regulations, orders, and decrees of ministers prescribing the mode of trial have been transmitted to the secretary of state, and by him been laid before congress for revision, as required by law. ”

“ If the new trial be asked for excessive damages, or insufficiency of the evidence to justify the verdict or other decision, or that it is against law, or for errors occurring at the trial, the application must be made upon a statement of the case, setting forth so much of the proceedings had, evidence given or offered, and rulings of the court, as will distinctly present the grounds urged in its support. ”

“ The second position of the plaintiff in error, that the state statute is repugnant to the provision of article 3 of the constitution which declares that the trial of all crimes shall be held in the state where they have been committed, is readily disposed of. ”

“ But whether the application be made upon affidavits, or a statement thus prepared, the rulings thereon, whether of the District Court originally, or of the Supreme Court of the Territory on appeal, are not subject to review by this tribunal. We have no jurisdiction to revise the action of an inferior court upon the question of granting or refusing a new trial, however meritorious the grounds presented for its consideration or erroneous its decis on. The final judgment cannot be examined through the rulings of the lower court upon that question. ”

“ It is the general doctrine that there can be no certificate of a division of opinion between the judges of the circuit court on a motion for a new trial, as such motion usually rests in the discretion of the court, and, therefore, properly presents no questions for our determination. ”

“ The distinction is constantly applied with reference to the proceedings of ordinary tribunals. If they have jurisdiction of the subject-matter and the parties, their judgment cannot be collaterally assailed for mere errors committed in the proceedings leading to it. The remedy for errors must be sought by application for a new trial, or by appeal for a review to an appellate court. The same distinction prevails with reference to the proceedings of the special tribunal or department of the government to which is intrusted the supervision of measures for the issue of its patent. ”

“ Undoubtedly, in ordinary cases, a new trial cannot be granted by the court below, except for good cause, and in the exercise of its sound judgment, and it is not within its power, in entering the judgment of the supreme court, to award a new trial ”

“ The circuit court did not refuse to discharge the petitioner upon any independent conclusion as to the validity of the legislation of congress establishing the consular tribunal in Japan, and the trial of Americans for offenses committed within the territory of that contr y, without the indictment of a grand jury, and without a trial by a petit jury, but placed its decision upon the long and uniform acquiescence by the executive, administrative, and legislative departments of the government in the validity of the legislation. ”

“ After a final judgment has been rendered in the State court, the case cannot be removed to the Circuit Court of the United States, and 'there proceed,' as the statute provides, 'in the same manner as if brought there by original process,' without setting aside the trial and judgment of the State court as of no validity. ”

“ The statute which authorizes it is there regarded as conferring a substantial right, in that it increases the security of holders of real property that, in case their title is brought into litigation, it will be more fully examined and satisfactorily ascertained and established than by confining the parties to a single trial, as in other controversies, except where another trial is ordered for cause. ”

“ If, then, a view of the premises where crime is alleged to have been committed is a part of the process of submission of data to the triers of fact, upon which judgment is to be founded; if the knowledge thereby gained is to play its part with oral testimony and written evidence in striking the balance between the state and the prisoner, it is a part of the trial. ”

“ At the conclusion of the complainant's case, if it appear reasonably certain that the magistrate will "hold" the prisoner for the action of a superior court, the lawyer will then "waive further examination," or, in other words, put in no defence, preferring the certainty of having to face a jury trial to affording in prosecution an opportunity to discover exactly what defence will be put in and to secure evidence in advance of the trial to rebut it. ”

“ Whereas in Anglo-American procedures the prosecution as well as the defense, so to speak as two parties, submit their case for the decision of the court, in German procedures the investigation of the facts of the case in the trial, the rules concerning the extent of evidence to be collected, the serving of summons to witnesses for the prosecution and defense, without the prosecution or the defense filing any requests, are in the hands of the court. ”

“ The prisoner and the prisoner’s lawyer, even the prisoner’s friends, are encouraged also to give the names of any people from whom they wish the examining magistrate to collect evidence. Practically therefore in a French criminal case the criminal is tried twice over, once by the examining magistrate, and a second time in the court of assizes before a jury. And the first trial is the more important of the two, because of the influence of the examining magistrate’s report on the minds of the judge and of the jury, at the assize court trial. ”

“ It is sufficient to observe that it cannot be impeached in this action or in any civil action against the defendant. And if the matters recited are taken as true there was ample ground for the action of the court. A greater indignity could hardly be offered to a judge than to threaten him with personal chastisement for his conduct on the trial of a cause. A judge who should pass over in silence an offence of such gravity would soon find himself a subject of pity rather than of respect. ”

“ In a very gratifying manner the American Chief Prosecutor stated yesterday, if I understood him correctly, that in the trial of the organizations, because of its fateful importance for millions of people, the principle of justice is much more important than the question of speedy proceedings. I should therefore like to join in the request made by Counsel for the Leadership Corps, that the trial of the organizations, which is to be regarded from different points of view, be separated from the trial of the main defendants. ”

“ As His Honor the President has already remarked, Article 17 provides for the right of summoning witnesses to the Trial. That is correct; but it is impossible to summon all the witnesses who could depose affidavits on the crimes committed by the defendants. I therefore refer to Article 19 of the Charter which reads:
“The Tribunal shall not be bound by technical rules of evidence. It shall adopt and apply to the greatest possible extent expeditious”—and I emphasize, Your Honor, expeditious—“and non-technical procedure and shall admit any evidence which it deems to have probative value.” ”

“ A grand jury, generally composed of twelve or more men selected from ordinary citizens, is brought together every term of court. They sit in a room by themselves and hear evidence as to the commission of offenses. They have no power to find a man guilty or not guilty. Their power and their duty is to decide whether the evidence brought before them is sufficient to justify putting the accused man on trial for the offense. They hear the witnesses for the State or government. The defendant is not brought before them personally, nor is he represented in any way. ”

“ Should the conclusion of the jury upon the weight of evidence be never so absurd, still it is the peculiar province of the jury to weigh that evidence, and to draw their own independent inferences from it; and the only legitimate corrective is to be found in the award of a new trial, or by a case agreed, or a demurrer to evidence. ”

“ From these considerations it follows that the only question which we are called upon to determine is whether, after a regular conviction and sentence, a suggestion of a then existing insanity is made, it is necessary, in order to constitute due process of law, that the question so presented should be tried by a jury in a judicial proceeding surrounded by all the safeguards and requirements of a common-law jury trial, and even although by the state law full and adequate administrative and quasi judicial process is created for the purpose of investigatiing the suggestion. ”

“ To recognize that disorder can convert a trial into a ritual without meaning is not to pay homage to order as an end in itself. Rather, it recognizes that the courtroom in Anglo-American jurisprudence is more than a location with seats for a judge, jury, witnesses, defendant, prosecutor, defense counsel and public observers; the setting that the courtroom provides is itself an important element in the constitutional conception of trial, contributing a dignity essential to 'the integrity of the trial' process. ”

“ Trials are necessarily surrounded with evidentiary rules 'developed to safeguard men from dubious and unjust convictions.' Id., at 174, 69 S.Ct., at 1310. But before the trial we deal only with probabilities that 'are not technical; they are the factual and practical considerations of everyday life on which reasonable and prudent men, not legal technicians, act.' Brinegar, supra, at 175, 69 S.Ct., at 1310. ”

“ For example, diagrams must be prepared, photographs taken of the place of the crime, witnesses compensated for their time and their expenses paid, and, most important of all, competent experts must be engaged. This leads us to an interesting aspect of the modern jury trial.
When no other defence to homicide is possible the claim of insanity is frequently interposed. Nothing is more confusing to the ordinary juryman than trying to determine the probative value of evidence touching unsoundness of mind, and the application thereto of the legal test of criminal responsibility. ”

“ How could we prove that the clothes were not over the sea if accident had not turned them up in the sewer in Lake View? You see the danger of assuming to be true what we can not disprove. You see the unreliability of circumstantial evidence. You see the difficulty we have in proving a negative. Suppose that one of you were on trial, and suppose that the State's Attorney could introduce a witness to swear he saw you burning a deed or will, and suppose in the middle of the trial the deed should be produced in all its entirety, how rejoiced you would be. ”

“ That you may not mistake this matter, as MOST people here do, I must explain to you, that this examination before the three above-mentioned general officers, was by no means a trial; but only a previous inquiry into his conduct, to see whether there was, or was not, cause to bring him to a regular trial before a court-martial. The case is exactly parallel to that of a grand jury; who, upon a previous and general examination, find, or do not find, a bill to bring the matter before the petty jury; where the fact is finally tried. ”