Judicial duty

“ It is to be found in the earliest judicial records, and it has been steadily maintained by an undisputed current of decisions. * * * It is essential in all Courts that the Judges who are appointed to administer the law should be permitted to administer it under the protection of the law, independently and freely, without favor and without fear. * * * How could a Judge so exercise his office if he were in daily and hourly fear of an action being brought against him, and having the question submitted to a jury * * * ? Does an action lie against a man for maliciously doing his duty? ”

“ If your Excellency ... chooses to take ... the responsibility of acting contrary to my opinion, I think it becomes a delicacy due to my judicial character to select some other person to draw them up; for ... I cannot in the due discharge of my duty to my Sovereign or to my conscience consent to attempt to give legal form to that which is illegal, or to frame or draw up regulations many of which in the due exercise of my functions as a judge, and with proper regard to my oath to administer justice according to law, I cannot enforce in my judicial capacity. ”

“ Prior cases establish, first, that due process requires, at a minimum, that absent a countervailing state interest of overriding significance, persons forced to settle their claims of right and duty through the judicial process must be given a meaningful opportunity to be heard. ”

“ It is emphatically the province and duty of the Judicial Department to say what the law is. Those who apply the rule to particular cases must, of necessity, expound and interpret that rule. If two laws conflict with each other, the Courts must decide on the operation of each. [p178]
So, if a law be in opposition to the Constitution, if both the law and the Constitution apply to a particular case, so that the Court must either decide that case conformably to the law, disregarding the Constitution, or conformably to the Constitution, disregarding the law, the Court must determine which of these conflicting rules governs the case. ”

“ Indisputably under our constitutional system the right to try offenses against the criminal laws, and, upon conviction, to impose the punishment provided by law, is judicial, and it is equally to be conceded that, in exerting the powers vested in them on such subject, courts inherently possess ample right to exercise reasonable, that is, judicial, discretion to enable them to wisely exert their authority. ”

“ The power to punish for contempts is inherent in all courts; its existence is essential to the preservation of order in judicial proceedings, and to the enforcement of the judgments, orders, and writs of the courts, and consequently to the due administration of justice. The moment the courts of the United States were called into existence and invested with jurisdiction over any subject, they became possessed of this power. ”

“ Chief Justice Marshall, that "the judicial department has no will in any case. Judicial power, as contradistinguished from the power of the laws, has no existence. Courts are the mere instruments of the law, and can will nothing. ”

“ In addition, a judicial exception to the longstanding policy evidenced by the statute has been made where a person about to be prosecuted in a state court can show that he will, if the proceeding in the state court is not enjoined, suffer irreparable damages. ”

“ If a resort to a judicial proceeding to collect it is deemed expedient, there remains to the court all the ordinary means of enforcing its judgment-executions, sequestration, and any other appropriate remedy in chancery. ”

“ The Court's approach must trouble all concerned with the function of the judicial process in today's world. As my Brother Douglas has said: 'The judiciary is an indispensable part of the operation of our federal system. With the growing complexities of government it is often the one and only place where effective relief can be obtained. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But when an action is brought upon a cause arising outside of the jurisdiction, it always should be borne in mind that the duty of the court is not to administer its notion of justice, but to enforce an obligation that has been created by a different law. ”

“ The judicial system, which includes supreme courts, district courts, circuit courts, police courts and other minor courts, is intended to give justice to the defendant in a criminal action, and to both parties in a civil action, but in many cases—to an American—the result does not seem to be satisfactory. ”

“ However late this objection has been made, or may be made, in any cause in an inferior or appellate court of the United States, it must be considered and decided before any court can move one farther step in the cause, as any movement is necessarily to exercise the jurisdiction. Jurisdiction is the power to hear and determine the subject matter in controversy between the parties to a suit, to adjudicate or exercise any judicial power over them. ”

“ Now, this want of jurisdiction of the inferior court in a summary proceeding to remove an officer of the court, or disbar an attorney or counsellor, is one of the specific cases in which this writ is the appropriate remedy. We have already seen, from the definition and office of it, that it is issued to the inferior courts 'to enforce the due exercise of those judicial or ministerial powers with which the crown or legislature have invested them ”

“ Judicial force does not move to the maintenance of rights or the suppression of wrongs, until these rights and wrongs have been authoritatively declared and ascertained by the formal judgment of a court. The primary purpose of judicial force is to execute judgment against those who will not voluntarily yield obedience to it. ”

“ The validity of the provisions of the Charter is conclusive upon us all whether we have accepted the duty of judging or of prosecuting under it, as well as upon the defendants, who can point to no other law which gives them a right to be heard at all. ”

“ The attorney-general of the United States, in a written opinion, given by command of the President of the United States, says as follows: “These officers, [Pg 345] [the commissioners,] and each of them, have judicial power, and jurisdiction to hear, examine, and decide the case.” “The certificate to be granted to the owner is to be regarded as the act and judgment of a judicial tribunal having competent jurisdiction.” “Congress has constituted a tribunal with exclusive jurisdiction to determine summarily, and without appeal, who are fugitives from service.” ”

“ Surely it may be assumed as a postulate, that a court of justice, in adjudicating upon the rights of the citizen or of the State, should do, and can have power to do, nothing which is irregular, or vain, or useless. ”

“ If the exercise of judicial power be such 'as the settled maxims of law permit and sanction, and under such safeguards for the protection of individual rights as those maxims prescribe for the class of cases to which the one in question belongs,' there has been no deprivation of due process of law. ”

“ I agree that judicial officers are exempt from responsibility in a civil action for all their judicial acts in respect to matters of controversy within their jurisdiction. I agree, further, that judges of superior or general authority are equally exempt from liability, even when they have exceeded their jurisdiction, unless the acts complained of were done maliciously or corruptly. ”

“ In judicial proceedings, generally, that has been deemed a safe and prudent rule of action, which involves no rights or questions not necessary to be considered; but leaves these for adjudication where and when only they shall be presented directly and unavoidably, and when surrounded with every circumstance which can best illustrate their character. ”

“ Beyond all doubt it is the duty of the court to render the judgment required by law in the first instance, but the experience of ages makes it evident that mistakes in that behalf will sometimes occur, even in the courts of general jurisdiction, and hence the rule, which may be traced to the very origin of the common law, that a court may vacate and set aside an erroneous judgment, during the same term, and render in its stead the judgment required by law. ”

“ But the courts of the United States are bound to proceed to judgment, and to afford redress to suitors before them, in every case to which their jurisdiction extends. They cannot abdicate their authority or duty in any case in favor of another jurisdiction. ”

“ Public prosecutors have the right to enter appeals and suits, the right of legal intervention in the course of judicial and administrative proceedings, the right to institute criminal proceedings and the right to file a demand for the defense of legality against valid resolutions of law courts and administrative organs. ”

“ I feel well assured that it will be better to trust the rights, privileges, and immunities of the citizen to tribunals thus established, and presided over by competent and impartial judges, bound by fixed rules of law and evidence, and where the right of trial by jury is guaranteed and secured, than to the caprice or judgment of an officer of the Bureau, who it is possible may be entirely ignorant of the principles that underlie the just administration of the law. ”

“ And even with help—it is a plague and a mystery till the true meaning has been settled—settled!—by adjudication: that is, by others in authority, the priesthood and the patriarchs, who, under the name of judges, are paid for all the thinking, as lawyers are paid for all the talking to no purpose, permitted at law: for, be it known to all whom it may concern, that is, to all the non-lawyers of our land, that no private interpretation of law is of any authority at law: nor is the right of private judgment recognized or allowed or tolerated or endured in courts of justice! ”

“ The jus ad rem by the performance of that executive act becomes a jus in re, judicial in its nature, and under the cognizance and protection of the judicial in its nature, and as well as the others. Gaines v. ”

“ For more than six hundred years—that is, since Magna Carta, in 1215—there has been no clearer principle of English or American constitutional law, than that, in criminal cases, it is not only the right and duty of juries to judge what are the facts, what is the law, and what was the moral intent of the accused; but that it is also their right, and their primary and paramount duty, to judge of the justice of the law, and to hold all laws invalid, that are, in their opinion, unjust or oppressive, and all persons guiltless in violating, or resisting the execution of, such laws. ”

“ XIV. — We doe not impower them to give judgment upon any ones person or estate, where no Law hath been before provided, nor to give power to any other Court or Jurisdiction so to do, Because where there is no Law, there is no transgression, for men or Magistrates to take Cognisance of; neither doe we impower them to intermeddle with the execution of any Law whatsoever. ”

“ In the English courts, when it is made to appear that property of the government ought, in justice, to contribute to a general average, or to salvage, it seems to be the usual course of proceeding for the proper officer of the government to consent in court that it may take jurisdiction of the matter. ”

“ As an exercise of raw judicial power, the Court perhaps has authority to do what it does today; but in my view its judgment is an improvident and extravagant exercise of the power of judicial review that the Constitution extends to this Court. ”

“ From the necessity of the case the law imposes upon the master the duty, and clothes him with the power, to judge and determine, at the time, whether the circumstances of danger in such a case are or are not so great and pressing as to render a sacrifice of a portion of the associated interests indispensable for the common safety of the remainder. ”

“ Justice Miller stated the general doctrine to be 'that an officer to whom public duties are confided by law is not subject to the control of the courts in the exercise of the judgment and discretion which the law reposes in him as a part of his official functions. ”

“ The state is the judge in its own cause, and cannot exercise constraint against itself. Nevertheless in the wider sense the administration of justice includes the proceedings in a petition of right, no less than a criminal prosecution or an action for debt or damages against a private individual. ”

“ Justice FIELD, 'it appears from the inspection of the record of a court of general jurisdiction that the defendant, against whom a personal judgment or decree is rendered, was at the time of the alleged service without the territorial limits of the court, and thus beyond the reach of its process, and that he never appeared in the action, the presumption of jurisdiction over his person ceases, and the burden of establishing the jurisdiction is cast upon the party who invokes the benefit or protection of the judgment or decree. ”

“ We have felt it to be our duty to examine into the facts with a completeness justified by the importance of the case, as well as from the duty imposed upon us by the statute, which we think requires of us to place ourselves, as far as possible, in the place of the Circuit Court and to examine the testimony and the arguments in it, and to dispose of the party as law and justice require. ”

“ In view of the fact that the question in the case was regarded below, both by the courts and by counsel, as one of 'general' or 'federal' law, the interest of justice requires that the judgment be vacated and the cause remanded for the enforcement of the applicable principles of state law. ”