Invective

“ This, gentlemen of the jury, I conceive to be a true picture of the present state of inoculation in these kingdoms. You will now lay your heads together, and weigh well the evidence you have heard. If you are of opinion that the articles of the indictment have been sufficiently proved; that the Prisoner hath in an especial manner preserved the lives of his Majesty’s liege subjects, by secret medicines and modes of practice unknown to all other practitioners, you will then find him guilty. ”

“ No one, except a person charged with an offence when giving evidence on his own application, and as to the offence wherewith he is charged, is bound to answer a question if the answer would, in the opinion of the court, have a tendency to expose the witness, or the wife or husband of the witness, to any criminal charge, penalty, or forfeiture, which the court regards as reasonably likely to be preferred or sued for. ”

“ We crave your pardon for this apparently rude intrusion, but we [236] are in pursuit of an assassin. We come to look for a man who has murdered another. Have we your permission to search for him?”
“Certainly,” said Inverawe, “wherever you please.”
“He cannot be here,” said one of the men. “I told you that he could not be here. Don’t you see plainly that he could not have come in here without awaking Inverawe. We lose time here. We had better on after our friends.” ”

“ I defy the insinuation," cried Affidavy, "and demand protection of the court.—Down, you rogue, or I'll indict you for horse-thieving. A pretty prank to play upon an honest man, riding for life and death! Botheration, Sir Sauce-box, whoever you are, give me my horse, or I shall lose the best case was ever entrusted to a lawyer—a gold watch worth forty pounds—bills of exchange—letters of credit—and a purse of guineas!" ”

“ At first, the patient perusal of a complex and wordy indictment occupies him exclusively: he then proceeds to cross-examine the witnesses—flattering this one—brow-beating that—suggesting—insinuating—amplifying, or retrenching, as the evidence would seem to favour or be adverse to his client. He is alternately confident and doubtful, headlong and hesitating—now hurried away on the full tide of his eloquence he expatiates in beautiful generalities on the glorious institution of trial by jury, and apostrophizes justice ”

“ When you make an affidavit, what do you do? When you make an affidavit of how many horses it will take, you take into consideration the length of the term, three or four years. You take into consideration the life of a horse. You take into consideration the roads and the weather. You take into consideration every risk, and find it is only a matter of judgment, only a matter of opinion, and the fact that men differ as to their judgment upon those points accounts for the fact that they make different affidavits. ”

“ A defendant is informed of the nature and cause of the accusation against him if the indictment contains such description of the offense charged as will enable him to make his defense, and to plead the judgment in bar of any further prosecution for the same crime. ”

“ In conversation, the Inspector’s words come short and sharp, in brief breaths of speech; and he has an uneasy way with him, as if always on the watch and impatient of inactivity. You feel, looking at him, instinctively that before you stands a man who is as incapable of a merciful action as he is of running away from an enemy,—a sharp, active, well-drilled man, who bites before he growls, and has led a life of wild exhausting excitement and danger for some years past. ”

“ Then the prisoner prayed a copy of the indictment.
L.C.J. (Sir George Jeffreys) . What is this? Sure you know that is never allowed. Besides, here is as plain indictment as ever I heard; you have nothing to do but to plead to it.
Pris. My lord, I apprehend there may be matter of law arising out of the indictment, and I would humbly beg the court to assign me counsel to consider of it. Besides, my lord, I believe it was done in another case: copy of the indictment was allowed. ”

“ When the indictment is found, or the information is filed, a warrant is issued for the arrest of the accused, to be brought before the court, unless he is at the time in custody, in which case an order for that purpose is made, to the end, in either case, that he may be arraigned, and plead to the indictment or information. ”

“ All the cunning fence between judge and culprit, all the fraud, all the torture of body and mind so ruthlessly employed to extort unwilling confessions, were not necessarily used for the mere purpose of securing a victim, for the inquisitor was taught to be as earnest with the recalcitrants against whom he had sufficent testimony as with the cases in which evidence was deficient. ”

“ Unlawful weapons, contraband, or other evidence of crime discovered in the process of an inventory, the primary purpose of which is administrative in nature, may be seized. Inventories shall be conducted in a reasonable fashion and shall comply with rule 312, if applicable. An examination made for the primary purpose of obtaining evidence for use in a trial by court-martial or in other disciplinary proceedings is not an inventory within the meaning of this rule. ”

“ There was a time when I began to write a detective story for myself. My murder, I thought, was rather cleverly carried out. The villain sent a letter to his victim, enclosing a stamped addressed envelope for an answer. The gum of the envelope was poisoned. I did not know, nor did I bother to find out, whether it was possible, but this, as I said just now, is the beauty of writing a detective story. If there is no such quick-working poison, then you invent one. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If the proof of the first crime is increased, it will be sufficient to inform the prisoner of the circumstances.
28. In the interval between the proof and the publication, the prisoner may demand audiences, through the jailer, which the Inquisitors must grant without delay, in order [Pg 225] to profit by the inclination of the accused, which may change from day to day.
29-32. Order the Inquisitor to cause the ratification of the witnesses; the manner in which this is to take place, and the publication of their depositions. ”

“ There is a very general test applicable to all indictments. If the facts alleged be established, or admitted to be true, and their truth is consistent with the defendant's innocence, the indictment is insufficient, however full the description in other respects. Applying this well-settled doctrine to the different counts of the indictments in these cases, there will be little difficulty in determining as to their sufficiency ”

“ And yet it does not answer to the accepted definition of induction, “the process of discovering a general principle by observation of particular instances”: what the detective does is to reconstruct a particular crime; he evolves no general principle. Such reasoning is used by every man in every hour of his life: by it we understand what people are doing around us, and what is the meaning of the sense-impressions which we receive. In the logic of the future it will probably be recognized that scientific induction is only one form of this universal constructive or reconstructive faculty. ”

“ The leader of these two gentlemen perhaps tries to pick a hole in the indictment, which has for several years past been not very serviceable to prisoners, because if the hole is but a small one, and unless the bench can be satisfied that the indictment, as it stands, describes a different offence to that which a prisoner has been arrested upon, or has come prepared to meet, it is amended in court so as to cure the defect which Mr. Noxious Sound’s not miraculous penetration has discovered. ”

“ When the trial is so far advanced that the sentence may be passed, the inquisitors shall convoke the ordinary and the consulters. As there is no reporter, the dean of the inquisitors shall report the trial, without giving any opinion, and the recorder shall read it in the presence of the inquisitors and the fiscal, who shall sit by the consultors, and retire when he has heard the report, before the judges give their votes. ”

“ There is no greater need of setting out the evidence to prove such intent than there would be of averring in detail the evidence of a scienter, or of any other fact material to the offense. Where the intent is a material ingredient of the crime, it is necessary to be averred; but it may always be averred in general terms, as in a case of assault with intent to kill. ”

“ A device, peculiar to the English jurisprudence, allowed a man indicted for a capital offence to turn “approver,” by confessing the crime and charging or appealing any one he choose as an accomplice, and this appeal was usually settled by the single combat. ”

“ If a man be indicted for that he has discovered the king's counsel and that of his companions in a jury, he shall be taken by the sheriff, or by the admiral of the court, or by other officers to whom it belongs, and brought before the admiral or his lieutenant, and afterwards arraigned upon the same indictment ”

“ I have the honour to attend your lordships on this occasion as attorney-general for her majesty, to lay before you the circumstances of the case upon which you will be called to pronounce judgment, without any object or wish on my part, except that I may humbly assist your lordships in coming to a right conclusion upon it, according to its merits. An indictment has{610} been found against a peer of the realm by a grand jury of his country, charging him with a felony, the punishment of which is transportation or imprisonment. ”

“ If the Thief on his Trial should be acquitted, as often happens through some Defect of Evidence in the most notorious Cases, the Receiver, being only an Accessary, tho' he hath confessed his Crime, or tho' the most undeniable Evidence could be brought against him, must be acquitted likewise. ”

“ While I am on the subject of the affidavit, I call the student’s attention to a possible suggestion in Colonel Godfrey’s second communication below.
366It is twenty-eight years since the Battle of the Little Big Horn. If the alleged affiant is now alive, what reason can exist to prevent him coming out and acknowledging his affidavit? If he is dead, why should secrecy about it longer exist? Why does not General Miles break his silence? The whole matter turns on the production of this affidavit, with satisfactory evidence as to the character of the affiant. ”

“ The judge, worn by the ceaseless stream of diseased, ineffectual, and halting humanity passing daily before his eyes, gazed in surprise and growing interest upon this group of handsome and well-dressed people while the prosecuting attorney presented the claims of the complaining witness, charging the defendant with conspiring to rob or defraud one, Mary Aiken. ”

“ The man who acted for the prisoner—the solicitor, I think it was—made such a brilliant fight in the police-court that the magistrates hesitated to commit; but the result was that the Crown knew all about the defence, and when the real trial came, the man hadn’t a chance. Always reserve your defence.’
‘Yes; but you forget, the solicitor has got a splendid practice through it,’ was the bitter answer. ‘Few men in the West of England are doing better in that class of business. ”

“ In Roman criminal procedure the indictment (inscriptio or libellus accusationis) was usually in writing, and contained a formal statement of the offence. In some cases oral accusations were allowed. The pleading of the accused seems to have been informal. In English criminal cases the expression “pleadings” is limited to those tried on indictment Criminal. or information before a jury. In matters dealt with by justices of the peace there are in formations sometimes in writing, but they are never regarded as “pleadings.” ”

“ The jury, after inspecting the body and hearing the testimony, must render their verdict, and certify it by an inquisition in writing, signed by them, and setting forth who the person killed or wounded is, and when, where, and by what means he came to his death or was wounded, and if he were killed or wounded, or his death were occasioned by the act of another by criminal means, who is guilty thereof, in so far as by such inquisition they have been able to ascertain. ”

“ If an outsider commits a crime while in company with an official or familiar, or is an accomplice in a crime committed by an official or familiar, the inquisitors shall not have cognizance of his case but only of that of the official or familiar. ”

“ We have on several occasions addressed the proper analytical framework for determining whether a plaintiff's allegations are sufficient to overcome a defendant's defense of qualified immunity asserted in a motion for summary judgment. Qualified immunity is a defense that must be pleaded by a defendant official. ”

“ She was struck dumb and petrified by the narration; but she had no sooner gathered sufficient nerve to speak, than she earnestly entreated him to have nothing to do in concealing the guilty stranger.
“Let not this awful warning, now given you for the second time, be neglected,” said she. “Send for the officers of justice without delay, [258] and give up the murderer to be tried by the offended laws of his country. You know not what curse may fall upon you, for thus trying to arrest Heaven’s judgment on the guilty man. Oh, Inverawe, it is dreadful to think of it!” ”

“ On the trial of the indictment, which was begun on the 29th of January and concluded on the 21st of March, 1906, the defendants claimed immunity, under that clause of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States which reads: "Nor shall any person be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself." ”