Right to a fair trial

“ There is no person so poor, or obscure, or friendless, that when he is charged with a crime which might affect his liberty or his life, he shall not have the right to a full, fair trial. Not only are his witnesses produced and paid by the government, but an attorney is appointed by the government to represent him, and help him establish his innocence. ”

“ The Constitution thus goes into some detail to spell out what kind of trial a defendant charged with crime should have, and I believe the Court has no power to add to or subtract from the procedures set forth by the Founders. I realize that it is far easier to substitute individual judges' ideas of 'fairness' for the fairness prescribed by the Constitution, but I shall not at any time surrender my belief that that document itself should be our guide, not our own concept of what is fair, decent, and right. ”

“ While different theories have been advanced to support the permissibility of retrial, of greater importance than the conceptual abstractions employed to explain the Ball principle are the implications of that principle for the sound administration of Justice. Corresponding to the right of an accused to be given a fair trial is the societal interest in punishing one whose guilt is clear after he was obtained such a trial. ”

“ Although the Constitution does not in terms give defendants an option between different modes of trial, petitioner argues that the provisions relating to jury trial are for the protection of the accused. Petitioner further urges that since a defendant can waive other constitutional rights without the consent of the Government, he must necessarily have a similar right to waive a jury trial and that the Constitution's guarantee of a fair trial gives defendants the right to safeguard themselves against possible jury prejudice by insisting on a trial before a judge alone. ”

“ He truly becomes the judge of his own cause. The defendant charged with criminal contempt is thus denied what I had always thought to be an indispensable element of due process of law-an objective, scrupulously impartial tribunal to determine whether he is guilty or innocent of the charges filed against him. In the words of this Court: 'A fair trial in a fair tribunal is a basic requirement of due process. Fairness of course requires an absence of actual bias in the trial of cases. But our system of law has always endeavored to prevent even the probability of unfairness. ”

“ When examined in closer detail the argument from 'necessity' appears to rest on the assumption that the regular criminal processes, including trial by petit jury and indictment by grand jury, will not result in conviction and punishment of a fair share of those guilty of violating court orders, are unduly slow and cumbersome, and by intervening between the court and punishment for those who disobey its mandate somehow detract from its dignity and prestige. ”

“ But that laudable objective should not be sought in a way which undercuts the very purposes for which courts were created— that is, to try cases on their merits and render judgments in accordance with the substantial rights of the parties. Where a case has so little merit that it is not being prosecuted, a trial court can of course properly dispose of it under fair constitutional procedures. ”

“ As a result, at this time those safeguards do not permit the televising and photographing of a criminal trial, save in two States and there only under restrictions. The federal courts prohibit it by specific rule. This is weighty evidence that our concepts of a fair trial do not tolerate such an indulgence. We have always held that the atmosphere essential to the preservation of a fair trial-the most fundamental of all freedoms-must be maintained at all costs. Our approach has been through rules, contempt proceedings and reversal of convictions obtained under unfair conditions. ”

“ The Court there dug a pit dangerous for civil liberties. The right to fair trial is the right that stands guardian over all other rights. Reference to the reports will show what otherwise one would not believe: that the Court, by a bare majority, held it to be entirely fair to try a person before a jury consisting solely of government employees, plus the fact that one juror and the wife of another worked in the office of the department head responsible for enforcement of the law charged to be violated. ”

“ I can see no basis whatsoever in the language of the Constitution for allowing persons like appellant the benefit of those rights and yet denying them a jury trial, a right which is surely one of the fundamental aspects of criminal justice in the English-speaking world. ”

“ The right also serves broader interests:
'The Speedy Trial Clause protects societal interests, as well as those of the accused. The public is concerned with the effective prosecution of criminal cases, both to restrain those guilty of crime and to deter those contemplating it. Just as delay may impair the ability of the accused to defend himself, so it may reduce the capacity of the government to prove its case. ”

“ Moreover, in view of our heritage and the history of the adoption of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, it seems peculiarly anomalous to say that trial before a civilian judge and by an independent jury picked from the common citizenry is not a fundamental right. ”

“ It is this power of vetoing all partial and oppressive legislation, and of restricting the government to the maintenance of such laws as the whole, or substantially the whole, people are agreed in, that makes the trial by jury "the palladium of liberty." ”

“ It is at this point that we do not agree: in our judgment, when serious punishment for contempt is contemplated, rejecting a demand for jury trial cannot be squared with the Constitution or justified by considerations of efficiency or the desirability of vindicating the authority of the court. ”

“ If a state, whether by the active conduct or the connivance of the prosecution, obtains a conviction through the use of perjured testimony, it violates civilized standards for the trial of guilt or innocence and thereby deprives an accused of liberty without due process of law. ”

“ There certainly can be no graver question affecting the rights of citizens than this. The whole theory of trial by jury at common law consists in the fundamental maxim that before any conviction can be had for a crime it must be passed upon by twelve good and lawful men, the peers of the accused; and the very oath prescribed to jurors by the common law most distinctly guaranteed this right to the accused: "You shall well and truly try and true deliverance make, between the King and the prisoner at the bar, according to your evidence;" ”

“ If the benefit of a trial by jury can in that way be taken away, it will take but little ingenuity on the part of lawmakers to provide for the total destruction of the right of trial by jury,-a right which has been considered of priceless benefit in all English-speaking nations, and the protection of which is imbedded in the national as well as state Constitutions. ”

“ And of course this constitutionally established power of a jury to determine guilt or innocence of a defendant charged with crime cannot be taken away by Congress, directly or indirectly, in whole or in part. Obviously, a necessary part of this power, vested by the Constitution in juries (or in judges when juries are waived) , is the exclusive right to decide whether evidence presented at trial is sufficient to convict. ”

“ As I have said earlier, and as I will say later in my address, the right of jury trial is something the Constitution grants to the citizens of the United States. The Congress does not have the authority to take the jury trial away from the people of America. ”

“ Of this question every man must of course judge according to the light in his own mind. And no man can be convicted unless the jury find, not only that the statute is law,—that it does not infringe the rights and liberties of the people,—but also that it was so clearly law, so clearly consistent with the rights and liberties of the people, as that the individual himself, who transgressed it, knew it to be so, and therefore had no moral excuse for transgressing it. ”

“ It has also been said, that the right of the judge to instruct the jury upon the weight of testimony has been ruled as the established doctrine of this court. If this be so, it is a revelation which the friends of jury trial, in its full integrity and independence, will grieve to learn, and will be disposed to regard as a demolition by this court of that sacred ark of civil liberty, for which, by the greatest services it may render, it can hardly ever be able to atone. ”

“ It is only when the finding of the jury is unfavorable to the prisoner, that the humane provisions of our law, always jealous of oppression when the life or liberty of the citizen is at stake, permits the verdict to be set aside, and a new trial granted to the unhappy culprit. When I concede the right of the Court to explain the law to the jury in a criminal, and especially in a capital case, I am penetrated with a conviction that it ought to be done, if at all, with great caution and delicacy. ”

“ I find it difficult to understand how it can be maintained that the same people who manifested such great concern for trial by jury as to explicitly embed it in the Constitution for every $20 civil suit could have intended that this cherished method of trial should not be available to those threatened with long imprisonment for the crime of contempt. ”

“ This last is the moral rule universally recognized to be binding upon single individuals. And in the forum of conscience the same rule is equally binding upon governments, for governments are mere associations of individuals. This is the rule on which the trial by jury is based. And it is plainly the only rule that ought to induce a man to submit his rights to the adjudication of his fellow-men, or dissuade him from a forcible defence of them. ”

“ In short, if the jury have no right to judge of the justice of a law of the government, they plainly can do nothing to protect the people against the oppressions of the government; for there are no oppressions which the government may not authorize by law. ”

“ The exercise by federal courts of any broader contempt power than this would permit too great inroads on the procedural safeguards of the Bill of Rights, since contempts are summary in their nature, and leave determination of guilt to a judge rather than a jury. It is in this Constitutional setting that we must resolve the issues here raised.
All perjured relevant testimony is at war with justice, since it may produce a judgment not resting on truth. Therefore it cannot be denied that it tends to defeat the sole ultimate objective of a trial. ”

“ In isolated instances recalcitrant or irrational juries may acquit rather than apply the law to the case before them. Our system has wrestled with this problem for hundreds of years, however, and important safeguards have been devised to minimize miscarriages of justice through the malfunctioning of the jury system. Perhaps to some extent we sacrifice efficiency, expedition, and economy, but the choice in favor of jury trial has been made, and retained, in the Constitution. We see no sound reason in logic or policy not to apply it in the area of criminal contempt. ”

“ The guarantees of jury trial in the Federal and State Constitutions reflect a profound judgment about the way in which law should be enforced and justice administered. A right to jury trial is granted to criminal defendants in order to prevent oppression by the Government. ”

“ The safeguards that the Constitution accords to criminal defendants presuppose that government has a sovereign prerogative to put on trial those accused in good faith of violating valid laws. Constitutional power to bring an accused to trial is fundamental to a scheme of 'ordered liberty' and prerequisite to social justice and peace. ”

“ To get rid of the necessity of showing a criminal intent, and thereby further to enslave the people, by reducing them to the necessity of a blind, unreasoning submission to the arbitrary will of the government, and of a surrender of all right, on their own part, to judge what are their constitutional and natural rights and liberties, courts have invented another idea, which they have incorporated among the pretended maxims, upon which they act in criminal trials, viz., that "ignorance of the law excuses no one." ”

“ The true trial by jury would also compel the free administration of justice from another necessity, viz., that of preventing private quarrels; because, unless the government enforced a man's rights and redressed his wrongs, free of expense to him, a jury would be bound to protect him in taking the law into his own hands. A man has a natural right to enforce his own rights and redress his own wrongs. ”

“ Not only this, but the right of trial by jury, which has been regarded as secured to every man by the constitutions of the several States and of the United States, is denied to the person injured, and though his case has no element of equitable jurisdiction he is compelled to submit it to a court of chancery or to one of the masters of such a court. ”

“ In other words, the government, in all its acts, must keep itself so clearly within the limits of justice, as that twelve men, taken at random, will all agree that it is in the right, or it must incur the risk of resistance, without any power to punish it. This is the mode in which the trial by jury operates to prevent the government from falling into the hands of a party, or a faction, and to keep it within such limits as all, or substantially all, the people are agreed that it may occupy. ”