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I concur with nearly all of the Committee that Congress can not grant the exact relief prayed for in the memorial; however I deem it to be the duty of Congress to declare its disapproval of the doctrine asserted and the course pursued within the trial of Miss Anthony; and all of the more for the reason that no judicial courtroom has jurisdiction to review the proceedings therein. I concur with the vast majority of the Committee that Congress can not remit the judgment; that could be to exercise the pardoning power. On this case, subsequently, the committee assume the government is below a moral obligation to indemnify the petitioner. We come, therefore, to the nice query on this case: whether or not the choose erred in withdrawing the case from the jury. By the order of the choose the defendant was deprived of this proper, and if, in this case of minor consequence as far as regards the punishment inflicted, this can be finished, so within the trial for homicide or treason a decide may order a verdict of the jury with out permitting them to move upon the fact.
Upon this query it would seem that the choose himself vacillated within the trial, as a result of he permitted evidence to be gone into on each sides as a question of fact, tending to indicate whether or not the petitioner did or did not vote, realizing that she had no right so to do; however afterward withdrew the consideration of that proof, upon the fact of intention or guilty data, wholly from the jury, and ordered a verdict to be entered up upon his personal decision, without permitting the question either to be argued or submitted to the jury, or the jury to go upon it. Whatever modifications could have been made in the observe of the States because the time of the sooner amendments to the Constitution, sure it is that at the moment, after a jury had been impaneled, there was no manner that the accused may very well be put in jeopardy of life or limb with out his trigger being submitted to twelve men, and their unanimous verdict passing upon the fact of his guilt or innocence. It is sometimes mentioned as a triumphant argument in favor of the exercise of this power, “Has not the judge the power to order a verdict of acquittal?” The reply to that, as a matter of law, is “No; he can solely direct the jury that upon the information and matter of legislation he believes the case can not be maintained, but that it’s for the jury to say whether they will comply with that path;” and his treatment is to set aside that verdict, and that energy has at all times been exercised at widespread regulation in favor of the prisoner, however he can not set aside the verdict of not guilty.
By vital division there come up two questions: First, has Congress any power, or is there any precedent for entertaining such petition for such function? Congress can’t grant a new trial; that could be an train of judicial energy. The best of judges could commit the gravest of errors amid the hurry and confusion of a nisiprius time period; and the fallacious Miss Anthony has suffered ought to be charged to the vicious system which denies to these convicted of offenses towards the legal guidelines of the United States a listening to before the court docket of final resort-a defect it is equally within the facility and the duty of Congress speedily to treatment. Now, when a new statute is handed, and a query of legislation is raised by counsel, it must first come before the court docket, charged by regulation with the conduct and superintendence of a jury trial; and, in any effectively-ordered system of jurisprudence, provision is made that or not it’s re-examinable by the courtroom of final resort. Unfortunately the United States has no “well-ordered system of jurisprudence.” A citizen may be tried, condemned, and put to dying by the erroneous judgment of a single inferior choose, and no court docket can grant him relief or a new trial.
There is no such thing as a Court of the federal government which has jurisdiction to evaluate the case. There actually will be no graver query affecting the rights of citizens than this. If a citizen have a trigger involving the title to his farm, if it exceed two thousand dollars in value, he might deliver his trigger to the Supreme Court; but when it involves his liberty or his life, he can not. It appears to your committee that there are two very noted and historic circumstances which may type the precedents for this utility, and favorable action thereon by Congress-within the proceeding concerning the fines imposed by the courts on Matthew Lyon and General Jackson. Forty-third Congress, 1st Session, House of Representatives, Report No. 608, Susan B. Anthony, May 25, 1874, recommitted to the Committee on the Judiciary and ordered to be printed. It may have been misapprehended by the judges, and never thought-about in all its bearings, or they could have needed time and means for a cautious and thorough investigation, and should due to this fact consent and desire to reconsider it a number of instances. I chuckle on the simplicity with which I’ve several occasions gone into that country for the sole goal of seeking this imaginary happiness when I was ever stunned to find the inhabitants, significantly the girls, of a fairly completely different disposition to what I sought.