HKB
5 passages · search this phrase →
Often appears with: courts, trials, and pleading · justice as a virtue · censorship and the press · writ of error · supreme court jurisdiction · rules of legal interpretation · removal by popular vote · port bill · popular election of judges · legislative power to set court procedures · language, naming, and meaning · jury trial vs appellate re-examination
Usually: argument (4) · skepticism (2) · law or decree (1) · the test or trial (1) · censure (1) · detachment (1) · indignation (1)
“But it does not follow that the re-examination of a fact once ascertained by a jury, will be permitted in the Supreme Court.” Alexander Hamilton; John Jay; James Madison, The Federalist Papers · observation
“All crimes, except upon impeachment, shall be tried by a Jury of twelve men; and if they shall have been committed within any State, shall be tried within such State; and all civil causes arising under this constitution of the like kind with those which have been heretofore triable by Jury in the respective States, shall in like manner be tried by jury;” United States. Constitutional Convention (recorded by James Madison), The Journal of the Debates in the Convention which F · observation
“If a judge could be removed from office by a popular vote, whoever was desirous of supplanting him would make capital for that purpose out of all his judicial decisions; would carry all of them, as far as he found practicable, by irregular appeal before a public opinion wholly incompetent, for want of having heard the case, or from having heard it without either the precautions or the impartiality belonging to a judicial hearing;” John Stuart Mill, Considerations on Representative Government · observation
Hamilton argues that Supreme Court appellate review of law and fact need not abolish jury trials, since courts can review facts on the record (e.g., via writs of error) without retrying juries in the new forum.
would appertain to the inferior tribunals; and the Supreme Court would have nothing more than an appellate jurisdiction, “with such EXCEPTIONS and under such REGULATIONS as the Congress shall make.” The propriety of this appellate jurisdiction has been scarcely called in question in regard to matters of law; but the clamors have been loud against it as applied to matters of fact. Some well-intentioned men in this St…
Hamilton argues that alleged legal maxims about excluding generals and one expression implying the exclusion of others were misapplied, and that the Constitution’s criminal jury guarantee does not forbid juries in civil cases.
to support it by certain LEGAL MAXIMS of interpretation, which they have perverted from their true meaning, it may not be wholly useless to explore the ground they have taken. The maxims on which they rely are of this nature: “A specification of particulars is an exclusion of generals”; or, “The expression of one thing is the exclusion of another.” Hence, say they, as the Constitution has established the trial by ju…
Mill argues judges should not be subject to popular election or removal, warning that elector-driven accountability would invite manipulation and popular passion; he prefers jury participation as the democratic check.
a state of things holding out any encouragement to that most audacious and profligate of all breaches of trust, even this entireness of constitutional dependence is but a weak protection. Of all officers of government, those in whose appointment any participation of popular suffrage is the most objectionable are judicial officers. While there are no functionaries whose special and professional qualifications the pop…
A draft judicial framework creates a Supreme Court with a chief justice, grants original jurisdiction in disputes involving the United States and states and foreign ministers, sets rules for trial by jury, and specifies impeachment trial courts and outcomes, plus courts’ removability and salaries.
ARTICLE V § 1. There shall be a Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, who together with the other Judges thereof, shall hold the office during good behaviour, removable only by conviction on impeachment for some crime or misdemeanor. Each Judge shall have a competent salary to be paid to him at stated times, and not to be diminished during his continuance in office. The…
Adams critiques Governor Hutchinson’s claim that English liberties must be abridged, citing fears of the Port Bill, Charter Bill, and trials outside juries, and argues colonies will resist dependence on Parliament.
were first settled, and continued to be the general sense until the last peace; and it must be the general sense again soon, or Great Britain will lose her colonies. This is apparently the meaning of that celebrated passage in Gov. Hutchinson's letter, that rung through the continent, viz. "There must be an abridgment of what is called English liberties." But all the art and subtlety of Massachusettensis will never …