CHAPTER VII. REVIEW OF OUR JUDICIARY SYSTEM. "For sparing justice feeds iniquity." "There's a fish hangs in the net like a poor man's rights in the law." As civilization advances, the ruder and less developed institutions gradually yield to more advanced and mature. Each onward step is attended with difficulty in proportion as the people are rude and undeveloped. The conservative element here asserts its prerogative, and the conflict is between error, supported by prejudice, bigotry, and the aggrandizement of those whose interests it supports on the one hand, and the light of advancing thought expressed in new ideas, sought to be applied to the welfare of society, on the other. So firmly do laws and institutions once established remain fixed, and so easily are prejudices excited for them, that it is no difficult thing for interested parties to retain the old and prevent the new. Thus a judiciary system, established hundreds of years ago, in the feudal ages, in a monarchi cal government, attended with imposing ceremonies and fixed forms, is preserved in its material characteristics and transmitted to us. This system does not aim at justice, it only professes to administer law; and whatever might have been the intention of formulating justice in the terms of law, the distinction is now so great as not to be included in the same category. Precedents, arising from decisions, the conditions. which gave rise to them having ceased long years ago, and in localities thousands of miles away, form the basis of judicial decisions to-day. "The English Courts all decide according to precedent, or if no former decision can be found, then by analogy, to what has been decided in similar cases, or upon some general principle which has been recognized; and in cases entirely new, have sometimes sought aid from the Roman Law.”— American Cyclopedia, loc. cit. That is to say, when a case arises that comes under no previous decision, they go back to heathen institutions for light, ignoring the judgment of modern thinkers, and all the benefits of modern science and philosophy. Common sense and the promptings of natural justice are alike ignored, and we have a fossilized system as arbitrary and unyielding as the bed of Procrustes. "The Courts of the United States have a general correspondence with the English judiciary system." -Ibid. The modifications pertain to local jurisdiction, rather than changes in the essential character of the courts. An attempt was made in France in 1790 to abrogate all power of deciding from analogy, or even a resort to general principles of jurisprudence; and all cases not provided for by express laws were to be referred to the National Assembly, for the purpose of having such law enacted as would be applicable to the particular case. "This crude experiment," says the historian, "was so unsatisfactory, that in the Code Napoleon it was thought necessary, not only to restore to the courts the power of deciding upon general principles and analogy, but it was made penal to do otherwise." Who "General principles and analogy!" understands general principles and analogy? Blackstone wrote four portly volumes to explain the Common Law that every one is supposed to understand. It requires years of study and discipline to be able to expound the law, and yet every one above an idiot or lunatic is responsible to it. The Emperor Nero is said to have displayed his tyranny by causing the laws to be placed beyond the people's knowledge, and then punishing them for disobeying them. The people in this government are virtually in the same condition; for the laws are accessi ble to very few; and if one wishes a legal opin, ion, it costs him a good round fee-an opinion that generally leads to litigation, and is stoutly denied by the opposing counsel, who is of equal ability. It is not strange that men eminent in the legal profession should disagree in the most vital points of law; for when we come to consider that law is a vast accumulation of rules, regulations, orders, decisions, opinions, speculations, theories, legislative enactments, and customs, running back to "the time the memory of man knoweth not to the contrary "; when we further consider the machinery for its administration is so complicated, cumbersome, intricate, dilatory, and uncertain-we cease to wonder at the diversity of opinion; for it requires more than human ability to comprehend the whole. But the great wonder is, that since simple justice is all the people demand, and that its administration is so simple, easy, certain, direct, and less costly, that it does not take the place of the present burdensome and oppressive system. There is no reason why the people should tolerate and suffer from such a judiciary system. If the laws were written in plain, clear, and explicit language, so that all could read and understand them, and easy, simple, and direct methods of administration devised, the objects and purposes of law would be accomplished at very little cost and infinite relief to the people. The history of judicial proceedings is one of injustice, cruelty, and tyranny. It is a history of fraud, crime, and oppression perpetrated in a legal way. Its great feature is the conviction of poor and obscure offenders, and the infliction of heavy penalties; while wealthy criminals and those occupying prominent positions in society are allowed almost perfect immunity: the former to" vindicate the law" and spread terror among the lower classes; the latter serves for an immense revenue to the profession, and is a consideration for compounding crime in high places. In the attempted compromise between the robber chiefs of the Mussel Slough land-steal and the settlers thereon, Mr. Huntington said in substance: "We have the government to back us up; the settlers can do nothing." Instances of outright forgeries, recognized by judicial enactments, and nailed by precedents, are numerous; as instance the Broderick Will Case, the outlines of which are here presented: "David C. Broderick, a United States Senator from California, fell in a duel with David S. Terry, in this city and county, and died a few days there |