A criminal trial is like a Russian novel: it starts with exasperating slowness as the characters are introduced to a jury, then th...ere are complications in the form of minor witnesses, the protagonist finally appears and contradictions arise to produce drama, and finally as both jury and spectators grow weary and confused the pace quickens, reaching its climax in passionate final argument.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The equal right of every citizen to the free exercise of his religion according to the dictates of conscience is held by the same ...tenure with all our rights. [The legislature] are bound to leave this particular right untouched and sacred, [or] we must say, that they may control freedom of the press, may abolish the trial by jury, may swallow the Executive and the Judiciary Powers of the State; nay that they may despoil us of our very right of suffrage ... or we must say, that they have no authority to enact [a religious assessment].LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
You may talk about Free Love, if you please, but we are to have the right to vote. To-day we are fined, imprisoned, and hanged, wi...thout a jury trial by our peers. You shall not cheat us by getting us off to talk about something else. When we get the suffrage, then you may taunt us with anything you please, and we will then talk about it as long as you please.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Of all my prosecutors ... not one is my peer, but each and all are my political sovereigns; and had your honor submitted my case t...o the jury, as was clearly your duty, then I should have had just cause of protest, for not one of those men was my peer; but, native or foreign born, white or black, rich or poor, educated or ignorant, sober or drunk, each and every man of them was my political superior; hence, in no sense, my peer.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
And from a cliff top is proclaimed The gathering of the souls for birth,... The trial by existence named, The obscuration upon earth.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I suppose you all realize that as members of the court marshall for the trial of the conspirators in the assassination of our belo...ved president you have on your souls a grave responsibility. The object of this trial is not to determine the guilt or innocence of a handful of rebels but to save this country from further bloodshed. The solemn truth, gentlemen, is that the federal union is on the verge of hysteria. That is why the trial of these conspirators has been placed in your hands rather than in a civil court. Because men of the sword can be hard, and hardness is all that can save this country from riot, mob rule, even resumption of the war itself.... To help you to be hard, first, you must not allow your judgement in decision in this case to be troubled by any trifling technicalities of the law or any pedantic regard for the customary rules of evidence. Second, and most important, you must not allow yourself to be influenced by that obnoxious creation of legal nonsense--reasonable doubt.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I'm no idealist to believe firmly in the integrity of our courts and in the jury system--that is no ideal to me, it is a living, w...orking reality. Gentlemen, a court is no better than each man of you sitting before me on this jury. A court is only as sound as its jury, and a jury is only as sound as the men who make it up.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It was somewhere in the '70's that the fiend gossip came into New York society to stay. The first newspaper outburst that I rememb...er was after the Beecher trial, which was a terrible beginning. Then the papers began with attacks upon women. There were stories of kleptomaniacs, and of a young and fashionable man who had stolen his cousin's ring at a dinner-party, etc., etc. None of this sort of story was allowed at the dinner of Mrs. Astor, Mrs. Belmont, or Mrs. Fish. I can imagine the fine face of the latter freezing into marble had any one opened such a door of Bluebeard's closet in her stately presence.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »