Legal defense

“ Why, there on the Plaza you spoke in their their defense!"
"No, sir! No, sir! I did not! With the last breath that is in my body, sir, I will defend any man's right to trial trial by jury. I will defend any man's right to all the safeguards prescribed by law—but seek to have have guilty men acquitted, no! ”

“ In the institution of a prosecution for any offense against the most humble citizen—and I claim for myself no greater rights than he enjoys—the constitutions of the United States and of the several States require that he shall be informed in the very beginning of the nature and cause of the accusation against him, in order to enable him to prepare for his defense. There are other principles which I might enumerate, not less sacred, presenting an impenetrable shield to protect every citizen falsely charged with a criminal offense. ”

“ No inhabitant of the Nation shall suffer punishment without a previous judgment founded on a law passed previously to the cause of judgment, nor be judged by special commissions, or withdrawn from the Judges designated by law before the opening of the cause. No one shall be obliged to testify against himself; nor be arrested, save by virtue of a written order from a competent authority. The defense at law both of the person and his rights, is inviolable. ”

“ But where a defense is distinctly made, resting on local statutes, we should not, in order to reach a federal question, resort to critical conjecture as to the action of the court in the disposition of such defense. ”

“ In other words, the defence is one of lawful authority or reasonable excuse. An evidential burden is placed on an accused to raise the defence but it is the prosecution’s legal burden to disprove the defence. ”

“ A defendant, they said, is entitled to notice of the charges against him, trial by jury, the right to counsel for his defense, the right to confront and cross-examine witnesses, the right to call witnesses in his own behalf, and the right not to be a witness against himself. All of these rights are designed to shield the defendant against state power. None are designed to make convictions easier and taken together they clearly indicate that in our system the entire burden of proving criminal activity rests on the State. ”

“ The courts must take such steps by rule and regulation that will protect their processes from prejudicial outside interferences. Neither prosecutors, counsel for defense, the accused, witnesses, court staff nor enforcement officers coming under the jurisdiction of the court should be permitted to frustrate its function. ”

“ If the right to defend the national government can be raised as a defense in an individual prosecution as Neagle suggests, then a government defendant, acting in his official capacity, should be able to argue that any conduct that arguably violated a criminal prohibition was undertaken pursuant to more than just individual self-defense or defense of another. ”

“ Inordinate delay between arrest, indictment, and trial may impair a defendant's ability to present an effective defense. But the major evils protected against by the speedy trial guarantee exist quite apart from actual or possible prejudice to an accused's defense. To legally arrest and detain, the Government must assert probable cause to believe the arrestee has committed a crime. ”

“ It is not the function of the court, where reasonable men may differ, to determine whether the acts do or do not come within the ambit of the statute. The question of the connection of the information with national defense is a question of fact to be determined by the jury as negligence upon undisputed facts is determined. ”

“ We wish further, from the evidence that has been placed before us, to express our fullest confidence that the same force that has protected us by its bravery in the face of the enemy, aided by the skill and legal ability of our Prosecuting Attorney and his assistants, is quite competent to hunt these public enemies down, and to bring them before our courts of law with sufficient evidence of guilt to insure what they so richly deserve. ”

“ The right to defense is guaranteed. During criminal proceedings, the accused shall be entitled to have defense counsel, who shall be enabled, in accordance with the law, to defend and protect the rights of the accused. Provision shall be made in law determining when the accused in criminal proceedings must have defense counsel. Any person who has been unjustifiably sentenced for a criminal offense or who has been arrested without grounds shall be entitled to compensation from social sources for the damage that has been done to him. ”

“ In order to secure an accurate conception of the legal system, the early growth of which it is proposed to examine, it may be well to premise that the criminal law, which with a substantial uniformity of cardinal ideas now prevails in all civilized states, is well defined as "that branch of juridical law treating of those wrongs which the government notices as injurious to the public, and punishes by what is called a criminal proceeding, in its own name." ”

“ Criminal defendants are brought into court by the State or Federal Government to defend themselves against charges of crime. They go into court knowing that they may be convicted, and condemned to lose their lives, their liberty, or their property, as a penalty for their crimes. Because of this great governmental power the United States Constitution has provided special protections for people charged with crime. They cannot be convicted under bills of attainder or ex post facto laws. ”

“ XVI. Guarding Rights In Court Confronted By Witnesses—Compulsory Process—Aid Of Counsel—Jury In Civil Trial I am sure that no one until he has studied the Constitution, no one certainly who is not a trained lawyer, will realize the many safeguards necessary to protect persons who may be wrongfully accused of a crime; but the framers of the Constitution knew the dangers from the sad experiences of innocent men and women who had been sacrificed by tyrants who had but little regard for human life or for human liberty. ”

“ Instead, they provided the defendant with clear, emphatic guarantees: counsel for his defense, a speedy trial, trial by jury, confrontation with the witnesses against him, and other such unequivocal and definite rights. The explicit commands of the Constitution provide a full description of the kind of 'fair trial' the Constitution guarantees, and in my judgment that document leaves no room for judges either to add to or detract from these commands. ”

“ By this and many other ways we shall help those charged with criminal offences, who, on a most careful enquiry, might reasonably be supposed to be innocent, but who, through want of means, are unable to obtain the legal assistance, and produce the evidence necessary for an efficient defence. ”

“ No person shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia when in actual service, in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject, for the same offence, to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb, nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself ”

“ While, therefore, we occasionally meet with a careful and well-reasoned argument, presenting the case of the accused in the most favorable light, and pointing out the irregularities and illegality and weakness of the evidence, in general the defence is perfunctory, of no real service to the accused, while ostensibly giving him the benefit of defence by a trained lawyer and enabling the tribunal to overrule what might be alleged in his favor. ”

“ And society's awareness of the heavy personal strain which a criminal trial represents for the individual defendant is manifested in the willingness to limit the Government to a single criminal proceeding to vindicate its very vital interest in enforcement of criminal laws. ”

“ For practically the first 150 years of this Nation's history no State considered adopting such procedures compelling a criminal defendant to help convict himself, although history does not indicate that our ancestors were any less intelligent or solicitous of having a fair and efficient system of criminal justice than we are. History does indicate that persons well familiar with the dangers of arbitrary and oppressive use of the criminal process were determined to limit such dangers for the protection of each and every inhabitant of this country. ”

“ The sifting of criminal charges against people is for the grand jury or for judges or magistrates and for them alone under our Constitution. In my view no other accusatory body can be used that withholds the rights of confrontation and cross-examination from those accused of federal crimes. ”

“ If further evidence or illustration of these truths is desired, it can be abundantly gathered from the sketch which it is now proposed to give of some of the steps by which societies, in their efforts to control the avenger and regulate avengement, were slowly and at first unconsciously led toward the cardinal doctrine of criminal jurisprudence, that it is the function of government to protect by suitable penalties its citizens in person and property from the violence and fraud of one another. ”

“ While I should be human enough to apply the letter of the law with some indulgence to officers acting to deal with threats or crimes of violence which endanger life or security, it is notable that few of the searches found by this Court to be unlawful dealt with that category or crime. ”

“ Whichsoever of these positions be true, the defence set up on behalf of the respondent is false. What have you seen? A man condemned to death, unheard, by a prejudiced jury and an unrighteous judge, thirsting for his blood; the Executive demanding to hear that defence, to which the Court would not listen, and extending the arm of its protection to snatch the victim from the oppressor’s [276] grasp. And will you now turn this man loose upon society, armed with the terrors of the law and secure in impunity, to perpetrate similar offences? ”

“ On the contrary, this Court has strongly asserted the right of defendants to raise defenses permitted others despite their guilt or innocence of charges that are separate and distinct from those upon which they are tried. ”

“ Today we have again stressed the rule that federal intervention affecting pending state criminal prosecutions, either by injunction or by declaratory judgment, is proper only where irreparable injury is threatened. ”

“ The Constitution has made provision for the venue of criminal actions or prosecutions, and their nature cannot be altered by legislative enactment, so as to embrace the whole country in one vast district. A provision in a statute of this nature, by which it is possible to find an indictment and to have a trial at the most remote point from the actual commission of the offense, ought not to be approved as a compliance with the Constitution. ”

“ They have tended to show, that the security of liberty is materially concerned only in the trial by jury in criminal cases, which is provided for in the most ample manner in the plan of the Convention; that even in far the greatest proportion of civil cases, and those in which the great body of the community is interested, that mode of trial will remain in its full force, as established in the State Constitutions, untouched and unaffected by the plan of the Convention ”

“ Speaker, where is the proof that the provisions now in force are not sufficient for the security of the person? Have you any evidence to this effect? If you have, I am ignorant of it. Are not the courts of justice open? Let the persons injured resort thither. Let their complaints be laid before an American jury. Will not an adequate redress be had there? Are the people of the United States too insensible of the value of the privilege of the habeas corpus to award damages proportionate to the injury sustained by its infraction? ”

“ In sum, the constitutional safeguard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt is as much required during the adjudicatory stage of a delinquency proceeding as are those constitutional safeguards applied in Gault-notice of charges, right to counsel, the rights of confrontation and examination, and the privilege against self-incrimination. ”

“ There is no valid reason why they should be singled out for an extraordinary and essentially arbitrary mode of enforcement. Unfortunately judges and lawyers have told each other the contrary so often that they have come to accept it as the gospel truth. In my judgment trial by the same procedures, constitutional and otherwise, which are extended to criminal defendants in all other instances is also wholly sufficient for the crime of contempt. ”

“ Judicial wisdom counsels against anticipating hypothetical situations in which the discretion of the trial judge may be abused and so call for the safeguard of the Fifth Amendment-cases in which the defendant would be harassed by successive, oppressive prosecutions, or in which a judge exercises his authority to help the prosecution, at a trial in which its case is going badly, by affording it another, more favorable opportunity to convict the accused. ”

“ The fifth principle which I ask you to bear in mind, is that individual criminal responsibility of a defendant is imposed by the Charter not merely by reason of direct, immediate participation in the crime. It is sufficient for the Prosecution to show that a defendant was a leader, an organizer, instigator, or accomplice who participated either in the formulation or in the execution of a Common Plan or Conspiracy to commit Crimes against Peace. In the case of many of the defendants the evidence will show direct and immediate personal participation in the substantive crime itself. ”