Imputation

“ Therefore the statement as to the number of witnesses is unfounded, doubly unfounded. There was no proof in a legal sense, no proof in a moral sense, not one scintilla of evidence to which any man would resort, unless he was blind with bigotry or mad with passion, to fasten an imputation upon anybody. And on the other side the witnesses, who beyond all others knew exactly the facts, utterly denied the imputation. ”

“ You know there are persons, both in and out of the public councils, who will seize every occasion of imputation on either of us, the more difficult to be repelled in this case, in which a negative could not be proved. ”

“ In all cases where actual fraud is not made out, but the imputation rests upon conjecture, where the seal of death has closed the lips of those whose character is involved, and lapse of time has impaired the recollection of transactions and obscured their details, the welfare of society demands the rigid enforcement of the rule of diligence. ”

“ Such questions are generally held to be fair when, if the imputation they convey be true, the opinion of the court would be seriously affected as to the credibility of the witness on the matter to which he testifies; they are unfair when the imputation refers to matters so remote in time, or of such character that its truth would not affect the opinion of the court ”

“ And if we state the question differently, and ask whether rational prevision is consistent with all that is implied in accountability, can coexist with the conditions of imputation, a different reply must, I think, be given. We saw that a man was accountable, because he himself, and no other, has acted ”

“ Right to Prove In libel action relating to imputations made against public servants in connection with the discharge of their duties and functions, the defendant shall have the right to prove the truth of the imputation. ”

“ Nay, it may be insisted, that if the court, in passing upon the weight of the evidence, was acting within its legitimate sphere, the counsel would have been justly obnoxious to the imputation of indecorum, if not of contempt, in assailing before the jury the judge's decision; for the respective provinces of the court, the counsel, and the jury, are separate, distinct, and well defined, and neither should be subject to invasion by the other. ”

“ But it is just in this sense that the problem does not admit of statement, if it is to be correctly stated in the light of practical economy. What is required in economy is, not physical division of the product amongst all its creative factors, but the practical imputation of it, imputation in the sense used by a magistrate in speaking of a legal 'charge.' A sophist might maintain the impossibility of determining, amongst the thousand conditions, without the conjunction of which a murder could not have been effected, what share in the deed fell on the murderer ”

“ It is painful to a court ever to express an opinion that results in an imputation of wilful perjury, and, as much as it is possible in this case, we will put out of view the clashing testimony of individuals, and consider the case upon those facts concerning the truth of which the evidence leaves no doubt. ”

“ By imputation we here mean accusation after death, and hence judication, which takes place according to the state of a man's spirit: but we do not mean inculpation by a man before a judge; for this does not take place according to the state of a man's spirit, but of his body in the deed ”

“ But the results are serious enough to justify doubt and provoke investigation. Knowing the simple truth, it seems a little difficult to see how it can fail to be easily established—it is the imputation that afflicts me. ”

“ The anxious disavowal of an intention 'to defraud or wrong the complainants,' contained in the defendant's answer, was not called out by any charge in complainants' bill, but seems rather to have resulted from a consciousness that his conduct was justly liable to such an imputation. ”

“ No difficulty was expressed towards an adjustment of all differences and misunderstandings, or even ultimately a payment for spoliations, if the insult from our Executive should be first wiped away. Observe, that I state all this from only a single hearing of the papers, and therefore it may not be rigorously correct. The little slanderous imputation before mentioned, has been the bait which hurried the opposite party into this publication. ”

“ If there be anything that can sink that man, Corridon, lower in the scales of degradation, it is—"
The Chief Justice—"We cannot listen to any imputation on persons who were examined as witnesses. Strictly speaking, you are only to say why sentence of death should not be passed upon you; at the same time we are very unwilling to hold a very strict hand, but we cannot allow imputations to be made on third persons, witnesses or others, who have come forward in this trial." ”

“ Various circumstances exist in the world which mitigate and excuse crimes, also which aggravate and charge them upon the perpetrator: nevertheless, imputations after death take place, not according to the external circumstances of the deed, but according to the internal circumstances of the mind ”

“ Whether the imputations against you as to speculation, are well or ill founded, depends upon the facts and circumstances which appear against you upon your defence. If you shew that they are ill founded, I shall be contented, for I have never undertaken to accuse you since our interview, nor do I now give any opinion on it, reserving to myself the liberty to form one, after I see your defence; being resolved, however, so far as depends on me, not to bar the door to free inquiry as to the merits of the case in either view. ”

“ Did it ever occur that one who was about to pilfer and abstract $1,700,000 made the entry in his books that he had received the full sum for which he was to account, the $10,000,000, and then, after he had abstracted the money, put it in the forefront of his report that he had received $10,000,000, and sowed the report broadcast over the country, so that every man who could read should have the full proof of his guilt? Addressed to men acquainted with life the charge of guilt is an absurdity. ”

“ Of true legal presumptions, the majority may be dealt with most appropriately under different branches of the substantive law, such as the law of crime, of property, or of contract, and accordingly Stephen has included in his Digest of the Law of Evidence only some which are common to more than one branch of the law. The effect of a presumption is to impute to certain facts or groups of facts a prima facie significance or operation, and thus, in legal proceedings, to throw upon the party against whom it works the duty of bringing forward evidence to meet it. ”

“ We take the general doctrine to be that when, in a court of equity, it is proposed to set aside, to annul, or to correct a written instrument for fraud or mistake in the execution of the instrument itself, the testimony on which this is done must be clear, unequivocal, and convincing, and that it cannot be done upon a bare preponderance of evidence which leaves the issue in doubt. ”

“ For the purpose of determining by suit or by prosecution whether a man is a debtor or is an offender, a suit or a prosecution may be commenced against him, but never for the purpose of raising a presumption that he is either the one or the other, or to deprive him of [Pg 422] any evidence to which an unindebted or an innocent man is entitled, or to change the tribunal which is to try the question of indebtedness or of guilt. ”

“ The need for corroboration extends beyond complete and conscious admission of guilt-a strict confession. [7] Facts admitted that are immaterial as to guilt or innocence need no discussion. But statements of the accused out of court that show essential elements of the crime, here payment of money, necessary to supplement an otherwise inadequate basis for a verdict of conviction, stand differently. ”

“ This was in the dark legal days, when not only were parties excluded from giving evidence, but a pecuniary interest in the result of the suit to the value of one mill, would render a man incompetent as a witness. ”

“ To have been trusted with money or money's worth, and to have lost or spent it, is primd facie evidence of something wrong: and it is not for the creditor to prove, which he cannot do in one case out of ten, that there has been criminality, but for the debtor to rebut the presumption, by laying open the whole state of his affairs, and showing either that there has been no misconduct, or that the misconduct has been of an excusable kind. ”

“ Two prayers for instruction were presented by the defendants: 1. That the court should instruct the jury that the plaintiff is not entitled to recover any thing for the services of the physicians or other expenses, as there was no testimony to show the amount of money, if any, he paid on that account. 2. That the court should instruct the jury that in estimating the damages of the plaintiff they must take into consideration his advanced age as lessening his capacity for earning money. ”

“ In reasoning upon such subjects, when the facts which constitute the chain of circumstantial evidence are very numerous, we are apt to regard their greater comparative number as if it dispensed with a rigid application of the rules of determination. Every one can see, in the illustration above employed, borrowed from criminal jurisprudence, that the facts which constitute the chain of circumstantial evidence ought to be rigidly tested by the rules of determination before the guilt of the accused can be safely drawn as a deduction from the facts. ”

“ Our conclusion is, that the allegations of the special count, and the proofs given in evidence, were substantially the same, or, in other words, that the differences between them, if any, were not of a character which could have misled the defendants at the trial, and therefore the objection must be overruled.
II. Evidence was also introduced by the plaintiffs showing that the defendants drew on them for the whole amount of the purchase-money, in a sight draft, and that they paid the draft, as given in evidence, when it was presented. ”

“ For instance: we will suppose that the letters of the defendant in this case speak of the cost of the goods in the invoice, to which the defendant swore, and that they show the goods did cost more than they are rated at in the invoice; the quality of the evidence is of that character that it cannot be inferred that superior evidence exists, to make that fact uncertain. ”

“ But, gentlemen say, this is not the practice in the State courts; and we are told in Virginia, when a man is acquitted, the State pays the expense of his witnesses. Mr. N. said this might be so, though he did not know that it was; it was not so, however, in the courts of the United States. Any gentleman who doubted this, had only to refer to the treasurer’s accounts since the Government had been in operation, and he called upon any such gentleman to show a single charge for witnesses in cases of acquittal. ”

“ Before a court can instruct a jury to presume a grant or deed for land, time or length of possession must be shown, which, of itself, in certain cases, and in other cases, in connection with circumstances, will induce the presumption of a grant as a matter of law, or as a legal effect from evidence, which the jury is instructed to make, if in its consideration of the evidence the jury believe it to be true. ”

“ Indeed, so strong would be this inference, that in the absence of any attempt to explain or contradict the evidence, the jury would be justified in adopting the conclusion which it tended to prove. A presumption is an inference as to the existence of a fact not actually known, arising from its usual connection with another which is known, and on this principle the jury should have been allowed to consider this evidence. ”

“ If the defendant has proved, to the satisfaction of the jury, what amount of money came to his own custody or possession during his whole term of office, and has discharged himself of this amount, by proving its faithful and appropriate disbursements for account of the United States, this testimony may be taken into consideration by the jury, as tending to prove that he is charged with more money than he is properly accountable for. ”

“ The fact that an 'accounting' is sought is not of itself dispositive of the jury trial issue. To render this aspect of the complaint truly 'equitable' it must appear that the substantive claim is one cognizable only in equity or that the 'accounts between the parties' are of such a 'complicated nature' that they can be satisfactorily unraveled only by a court of equity. ”

“ Justice Wayne, in delivering the opinion of the court (page 560) : 'In a case of actual fraud, courts of equity give relief after a long lapse of time,-much longer than has passed since the executors, in this instance, purchased their testator's estate. In general, length of time is no bar to a trust clearly established to have once existed; and, where fraud is imputed and proved, length of time ought not to exclude relief. ”

“ And that such was the transaction the evidence received by the court tended to prove. The first assignment of error, therefore, cannot be sustained. Nor can the sixth, which is to the charge of the court, and which presents substantially the same question as that raised by the first. ”