Learned Hand Quotes
How long shall we blunder along without the aid of unpartisan and authoritative scientific assistance in the administration of justice, no one knows; but all fair persons not conventionalized by provincial legal habits of mind ought, I should think, unite to effect some change.
Learned Hand, 1872-1961, U. S. Supreme Court Justice, Parke, Davis & Co. v. H. K. Mulford Co., 1911
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The country was growing and the number of Federal Judges were totally inadequate. The main reason is that the Senators were appointed by state legislatures and states did not want any Federal Judges perhaps weakening the power of the state governments and the judiciary.
This was an unusual public chastisement of federal prosecutors by a Senior Federal Judge in a criminal trial. Federal prosecutors meet very high standards to be appointed, but the position of prosecutor has often been a stepping stone to advancement in politics, and sometime the desire to win at almost any cost impinges on the fairness and justice of a case. Of interest in this quote also is the fact that the Judge urged his colleagues to do more publicly to deter these practices.
Early American law and procedure was English law and procedure.
Jackson was then a rising young military officer and politician. He had been found guilty of abusing his power to declare and implement martial law. He was a character. He bragged about his “respectful submission” to the law by paying the fine, but ignored the legal violations he committed to be sentenced to the fine.
The American troops were fighting and dying to protect Iraq freedom and this incident caused much soul searching in America. Political pressure was brought to bear on the Kurds and Talabany announced that Kamal Sayid Qadir would be pardoned and released from jail. However, he acknowledged that the laws themselves had to be reformed to make them more democratic. See {589503} for the law.
Some Republican leaders, unhappy with some judicial decsions with which they did not agree, proposed measures from cutting judicial budgets to impeachment of judges.
Manava Dharma Shastra. The Hindu caste system is one of the most brutal and rigid forms of discrimination in human history. It is interesting to note that even the lowest cast people—the “untouchables”—were thought worthy of being witnesses. In early America, in many places Native Americans and Blacks were not considered fit to be witnesses even though they were free and not slaves. This “liberality” did not apply to women however where even the highest caste was not considered fit for the function. This text is a part of the Hindu Holy Texts. Hindus believe that Manu was a prophet whose text is revealed or inspired.
Billings Learned Hand was an American judge and judicial philosopher. He served on the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York and later the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. As of 2004 Hand had been quoted more often by legal scholars and by the Supreme Court of the United States than any other lower-court judge.
