Inferior court

“ 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. ”

“ Its use has been very much extended in modern times, and now it may be said to be an established remedy to oblige inferior courts and magistrates to do that justice which they are in duty, and by virtue of their office, bound to do. ”

“ We have no general power to review the judgments of the inferior courts of the United States in criminal cases, by the use of the writ of habeas corpus or otherwise. Our jurisdiction is limited to the single question of the power of the court to commit the prisoner for the act of which he has been convicted. ”

“ If so, before what tribunal should they be sued? If small damages were claimed, would a justice of the peace, or a judge of inferior jurisdiction, have authority to entertain the case, and pass upon the question whether his superior judges acted and decided rightly or wrongly? It cannot be that such is the law. 'There is no court,' it was said in Le Caux v. Eden, [15] 'equal to the trial of a superior judge.' Were the law otherwise (to use the words of Lord Stair [16] ) , 'no man but a beggar or a fool would be a judge.'
This question does not depend upon reasoning alone. ”

“ Unless judges, in administering justice, are uninfluenced by considerations personal to themselves, they can afford little protection to the citizen in his person or property. And uninfluenced by such considerations they cannot be, if, whenever they err in judgment as to their jurisdiction, upon the nature and extent of which they are constantly required to pass, they may be subjected to prosecution at the instance of every party imagining himself aggrieved, and be called upon in a civil action in another tribunal, and perhaps before an inferior judge, to vindicate their acts. ”

“ I must say, I think it would be quite right that inferior courts should not have the right of dealing with so much of a man’s property, without giving him a power of appeal, at least under restrictions. ”

“ Now they will answer for the country courts, and the inferior courts of the cities, where no opposing lawyer has enough wit and knowledge to oppose Story against Story, but they are no longer weighty authorities, and every term they are found to be of declining influence. ”

“ Controversies involving not merely great pecuniary interests, but the liberty and character of the parties, and consequently exciting the deepest feelings, are being constantly determined in those courts, in which there is great conflict in the evidence and great doubt as to the law which should govern their decision. It is this class of cases which impose upon the judge the severest labor, and often create in his mind a painful sense of responsibility. ”

“ Liability to answer to every one who might feel himself aggrieved by the action of the judge, would be inconsistent with the possession of this freedom, and would destroy that independence without which no judiciary can be either respectable or useful. ”

“ 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! ”

“ Yet, on the other hand, when I reflect that it may be only the result of a reaction in principle, proceeding from a latent conviction that all is not right within, and that we reject the tribunal because we are conscious that it must condemn us—abjure the authority of the court because we have violated its jurisdiction; yes, when I reflect upon this, it is then that these visitations of gloom and wretchedness sometimes agonize my mind until it becomes dark and heated, like hell, and I curse both myself and my creed. ”

“ This construction is fortified by the consideration that the mischief against which the statute was intended to guard was manifestly the excitement and prejudice so likely, in times of intense popular feeling, to attend suits in local courts for personal wrongs; excitement and prejudice which might render a fair trial difficult, and which might, indeed, greatly embarrass the government. ”

“ History teaches that the independence of the judiciary is jeopardized when courts become embroiled in the passions of the day and assume primary responsibility in choosing between competing political, economic and social pressures. ”

“ If you once break down the barrier of their dignity, and subject them to an action, you let in upon the judicial authority a wide, wasting, and harassing persecution, and establish its weakness in a degrading responsibility.' And the justice observed that no action of the kind was ever sustained, and save one in London and one in Ireland, none was ever attempted. ”

“ While the courts must exercise a judgment of their own, it by no means is true that every law is void which may seem to the judges who pass upon it excessive, unsuited to its ostensible end, or based upon conceptions of morality with which they disagree. ”

“ The popular court which we insist on is as different from the present jury as the present state is different from the people's state. The jury shall not be the monopoly of the propertied class, not the stage setting for the performance of a shameful farce on justice—class justice, where the deputies of the propertied class sit in judgment over those of the disinherited people and hide their class hatred and interests under the toga of law. ”

“ COURTS OF JUSTICE. "Colored men are excluded from the jury box; colored lawyers are discriminated against at the bar; and negroes, with the highest legal attainments, are not allowed to even dream of mounting the seat of a judge.
"Before a court that has been lifted into power by the very hands of prejudice, justice need not be expected. The creature will, presumably, serve its creator; this much the creator demands. ”

“ To assert as an absolute that a layman, no matter how wise or experienced he may be, is incompetent to choose between judge and jury as the tribunal for determining his guilt or innocence, simply because a lawyer has not advised him on the choice, is to dogmatize beyond the bounds of learning or experience. ”

“ The judge briefly but pointedly, and in a clear voice, which penetrated every nook of the chamber, explained the peculiar features of the court. Its power, backed by ten millions of silver dollars; its jurisdiction, over crimes committed by those who seek the fruits of labor, without its work, or who use the accident of wealth and social position to oppress or degrade man—their brother; its stern application to criminals, who, clad in wealth, had trampled all justice under foot of their own terse motto, "Might makes right." ”

“ Where, as in this case, timely objection has laid bare a discrimination in the selection of grand jurors, the conviction cannot stand because the Constitution prohibits the procedure by which it was obtained. Equal protection of the laws is something more than an abstract right. ”

“ And now, in the modern age, when the State seeks to do justice between the parties, the hazards of litigation have become still more complex and fruitful. The modern court is little like the tribal assembly, and one now will hardly seek the law-courts to vindicate his courage or to promote his honor. ”

“ Inequality, we repeat, is nothing, unless it was in pursuance of a scheme. To make out that scheme the anomalous course was followed of putting members of a tribunal established by law upon the witness stand to testify to the operations of their minds in doing the work intrusted to them. ”

“ We place little credence in the notion that the independence of the judiciary hangs on the power to try contempts summarily and are not persuaded that the additional time and expense possibly involved in submitting serious contempts to juries will seriously handicap the effective functioning of the courts. ”

“ Will the judges admit men to minister at the bar of justice, whom they would not admit like men among themselves? Will they say that it is unconstitutional to keep such men from the bar by an oath like this, but that it is quite constitutional to keep them from the bench? If a man has a right, without taking this oath, to come here among us, and stand at this bar, and exercise all the functions of an attorney and counsellor in this court because he has a pardon, would not a judge, though guilty confessedly of treason, have a like right to return to the bench;-if he had been pardoned? ”

“ What is most hideous in our England is the horrible institution of the civil Court, where causes that should be heard in camerâ are exposed shamefully to the light of day; so that men would rather bear their life-long torture than submit to the ordeal of a degrading publicity, and only shameless men and women dare to claim their freedom at so terrible a price. ”

“ His character is under the protection of the court.”
“No, sir!” said the advocate, with energy; “no court, however high,—no tribunal, beneath that of Heaven itself, whose decrees we dare not question,—can throw a shield over a man like this. There are crimes which stain the nation they occur in; which, happening in our age, make men sorry for their generation, and wish they had lived in other times.” ”

“ The right to be heard in open court before one is condemned is too valuable to be whittled away under the guise of 'demoralization of the court's authority.'
It is 'the law of the land' that no man's life, liberty or property be forfeited as a punishment until there has been a charge fairly made and fairly tried in a public tribunal. ”

“ A defeated litigant comes out of the best court in the most civilized state, angry, denouncing injustice and violation of rights, and declaiming solemn "doctrines" of justice and liberty and, above all, of "rights." ”

“ But before a tribunal which refuses to listen even to any, save those whose acts and motives are perfectly fair and liberal, they cannot be permitted to contravene the highest and most benignant principle of the being and constitution of that tribunal. ”

“ But my maturing view is that courts do law and justice a disservice when they close their doors to people who, though not in jail nor yet penalized, live under a regime of peril and insecurity. What are courts for, if not for removing clouds on title, as well as adjudicating the rights of those against whom the law is aimed, though not immediately applied? ”

“ Disobedience of an order of the Court of Chancery—though that order may command you to pay more money than you ever had, or to hand over property which is not yours and was never in your possession—is contempt of court. ”

“ The indictment is founded upon the fourth section of the act of Congress of March 1, 1875, 'to protect all citizens in their civil and legal rights,' which declares, 'That no citizen possessing all other qualifications, which are or may be prescribed by law, shall be disqualified for service as grand or petit juror in any court of the United States, or of any State, on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude ”

“ An individual cannot deprive a man of his right to vote, to hold property, to buy and to sell, to sue in the courts, or to be a witness or a juror; he may, by force or fraud, interfere with the enjoyment of the right in a particular case ”

“ Poor Fugitive Slave Bill Court! it can only gnash its teeth against freedom of speech in Faneuil Hall; only bark and yelp against the unalienable rights of man, and howl against the Higher Law of God! it cannot bite! Poor imbecile, malignant Court! What a pity that the Fugitive Slave Bill Judge was not himself the Grand Jury, to order the indictment! what a shame that the Attorney was not a petty jury to convict! Then New England, like Old, might have had her " bloody assizes," and Boston streets might have streamed with the hearths gore of noble men and women ”

“ Now, it has always been held that a mere error in point of law, committed by a court in a case properly subject to its cognizance, can only be reviewed by the ordinary methods of appeal or writ of error; but that where the proceedings are not only erroneous, but entirely void,-as where the court is without jurisdiction of the person or of the cause, and a party is subjected to illegal imprisonment in consequence, the Superior Court, or judge invested with the prerogative power of issuing a habeas corpus, may review the proceedings by that writ, and discharge from illegal imprisonment. ”

“ Instead, this Court has sanctioned progressive trivialization of the writ until floods of stale, frivolous and repetitious petitions inundate the docket of the lower courts and swell our own.8 Judged by our own disposition of habeas corpus matters, they have, as a class, become peculiarly undeserving.9 It must prejudice the occasional meritorious application to be buried in a flood of worthless ones. He who must search a haystack for a needle is likely to end up with the attitude that the needle is not worth the search. ”

“ The power of the courts to punish for contempt has, from the earliest history of jurisprudence and as far back as the annals of our law extend, "been regarded as a necessary incident and attribute of a court, without which it could no more exist than without a judge," and "a court without the power effectually to protect itself against the assaults of the lawless or to enforce its orders, judgments, or decrees against the recusant parties before it, would be a disgrace to the legislature, and a stigma upon the age which invented it." ”