Some Singular Massachusetts Decisions contempt of court, and that criticism of the court may amount to or involve an attempt at intimidation or an appeal to sympathy. It would be well, in my opinion, at least, if these well established
principles of law were more generally respected and more practically enforced; but they furnish no support for the novel and extraordinary theory of judicial immunity to which I have referred. As is said by Mr. Justice Holmes, speaking for the Supreme Court, in Patterson v.
Colorado, 205 U. s. 4'62; "When a case is finished, courts are subject to the same
criticism as other people." In fact, the judges themselves are and ought to be courteous but severe and therefore use ful critics of each other. The opinion of Mr. Justice Harlan, from which I quoted at the commencement of this
article, furnishes a striking example of
515
independence of our judges.
God for
bid that the day should ever come to America when the rights of Americans
shall be left to be vindicated, the liber ties of Americans shall be left to be protected, by a bench made up of men "with their ears to the ground!"
The
greatest judge our country ever had said
in
the Virginia
Constitutional
Convention of 1829:— Advert, Sir, to the duties of a judge. He has to pass between the government and the man whom that government is prosecuting — between the most powerful individual in the community and the poorest and most unpopular. It is of the last importance, that in the performance of these duties he should observe the utmost fairness. Need I press the necessity of this? Does not every man feel that his own personal security, and the security of his property, depends upon that fairness? The judicial dc partment comes home in its effects to every man's fireside; it passes on his property, his
just such criticism. reputation, his life, his all.
While, however, it is alike foolish and
mischievous to ask that our judges be exempted from the ordinary incidents
of public service in a free country, it is clearly the duty of every good citizen, yet more clearly of every worthy law
Is it not to the last
degree important, that he should be rendered perfectly and completely independent, with nothing to control him but God and his con science?
Having thus spoken, John Marshall might well add:—
yer, to protest with all his powers against I have always thought, from my earliest
any such detestable device to promote judicial servility as the so-called “re
youth till now, that the greatest scourge an
call," and against an encroachment in
angry Heaven ever inflicted upon an ungrateful and a sinning people was an ignorant, a corrupt, or a dependent judiciary.
any form on the absolute and inflexible
Some Singular Massachusetts Decisions N
response to a request from a brother lawyer for information
regarding certain humorous occurrences in the dispensation of law by the Su preme Judicial Court of Massachusetts,
a Boston lawyer recently wrote a letter which we are glad to publish, taking care to comply with the writer's pref erence for unanimity:—
John Jones, Esq., Tremont Building,
Boston, Mass. Dear Mr. Jones: — The farther one passes on through this Vale of Tears, the more one learns
to give thanks for the saving grace of humor. It is given to one who seeks, to find, if he only has the divining rod.
