Ethics in ServiceTaft, William H. (William Howard)
Philosophy
Ethics in Service
Taft, William H. (William Howard)
Legal ethics; Presidents -- United States; United States -- Politics and government
The jury system, though somewhat crude and not always certain, has
advantages that outweigh its possibility of injustice in the judicial
system of a free government among a free people. It is important that
the people shall have confidence in the courts, and it is important that
they shall feel that they may themselves be a part of the judicial
machinery. The value of popular confidence in the verdict of a jury
selected at random from a community is great enough to offset any
tendency to error that may at times arise from the undue influence of a
jury advocate upholding one side of the controversy before them. If the
jury is misled by the histrionic eloquence of counsel so that it clearly
violates justice in its verdict, the court may always set aside its
decision and give a new trial. Moreover, in any properly adjusted
system, the judge should be able to clear the atmosphere of any false
emotion that counsel may have created. He can remind the jury in his
charge that they are judges, who may not indulge their emotions or their
prejudices. He should follow closely the argument of counsel to the jury
in order that his charge may clear up the evidence by inviting the
attention of the jury to the weakness of proof at critical points of the
cause, or by pointing out either the bias of witnesses or their
opportunity or lack of it for observation, thereby eliminating those
phases of the controversy that the earnestness of counsel may have
seized upon to divert the attention of the jury from the real issue.
I have recently heard an arraignment of our present judicial system in
the trial of causes by a prominent, able and experienced member of the
Boston Bar. (I am glad to call him a friend. I value him highly as
such.) He ascribes what he calls the growing lack of confidence in the
justice and equity of litigation in the courts to the fundamental error
in their procedure. He feels that the procedure now in vogue authorizes
and in fact requires counsel to withhold facts from the court which
would help the cause of justice if they were brought out by his own
statement. To remedy this he suggests that all counsel should be
compelled to disclose any facts communicated to them by their clients
which would require a decision of the case against the clients. He
contends further that the rules of procedure, which exclude hearsay
evidence, and prevent the jury from hearing many facts which business
men regard as important evidence, make it difficult to reach the truth
which is essential to justice.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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