Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	court_n	justice_n	law_n	3,065	5	4.7299	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A46054	Ignoramus vindicated in a dialogue between prejudice and indifference touching the duty, power, and proceedings of juries : together with some material points relating thereunto / declared for law by the Right Honourable Sir John Vaughan ...	Vaughan, John, Sir, 1603-1674.	1681 (1681)	Wing I46; ESTC R34473	9,072	16

be rank Treason As if one should say to affirm the King has no more Right to the Crown of England than I have which is the Opinion of the Jesuits of his Majesty if once Excommunicated by the Pope Is detestable Treason And two Men at some distance not well hearing or remembring or maliciously designing against his Life should swear That he said the King had no more Right to the Crown than he had now that the Man did utter these very Words is true but if you ask the Evidence the rest of the Coloquium they shall tell you there was much more discourse but they cannot remember it what satisfaction is this to a Jury or would it not be hard for a man to be put to hold up his Hand at the Bar under the frightful charge of Treason in this Case Or if a Minister in his Sermon should recite that of the Psalms The Fool hath said in his Heart there is no God Jesuited Evidence now may come and charge him with Blasphemy and swear that he said there was no God and ask them what expressions besides he used may excuse themselves and say 't is a great while a go we cannot remember a whole Sermon but this we all positively swear-He said there was no God The Inquiry of a Grand-Jury should be suitable to their Title a Grand Inquiry else instead of serving their Country and presenting real Crimes they may oppress the Innocent as in the Case of Samuel Wright and John Good the very last Sessions Good Indicts Wright for Treasonable Words and swore the Words positively but after a Grand Inquiry the Grand-Jury found that Wright only spoke the Words as of others thus they say so and so and concluded with this They are Rogues for saying it And also Good at last confessed that Wright was his Master and corrected him for misdemeanors and then to be reveng'd he comes and swears against him which he confess'd he was Instigated to by one Powel so the Grand-Jury finding it to be but Malice returnd the Bill Ignoramus whereas if they had not Examined him strictly they had never discover'd the Intrigue and the Master had causelesly been brought to great Charge Ignominy and Hazard Prej. Well still I say Juries ought to go according to Evidence Ind. What is or is not sufficient Evidence to sway with the Consciences of a Jury they themselves are the only Judges Prej. You mightily magnifie Juries I 'le warrant you would have them sit with their Hats on Indiff Truely since they are a necessary part of every Court and have a Power vested in them by Law of determining the Lives and Estates of their Fellow Subjects I know not why they should sit creeping with Cap in Hand Nay I conceive when Grand-Juries are forc'd as of late for I know no antient precedents for it to heare and Examine Evidence in Court if they should put on their Hats the Court cannot by Law Fine them For by Immemorial Custom they have taken such Examinations sitting with their Hats on which Conciliated a respect to them from the Witnesses whereas if they sit in a Croud truckling like School-boys the Witnesses will not regard to Answer their Questions or Discover the Truth And the reason as I conceive why the Law provides that Grand-Juries should take Examinations in private is on purpose that Men or their Crimes might not be exposed before it appeared to a Grand Jury that the matter ought to be Publickly Tryed Whereas when they are compelled to take it in publick 't is a kind of Arraigning a Man before the Bill be found against him To what purpose is it for the Court to hear the Evidence given to the Grand-Jury the Jury are upon their Oaths and ought to follow the Dictates of their own belief and understanding the Court have nothing to do to meddle or interrupt For they are bound by the Verdict not by the Evidence Prej. Well but if the Jury goes contrary to Evidence cannot the Court Punish them Indiff Not at all the Law has provided no punishment and very reasonably For 't is impossible the Court can know that a Jury goes contrary to Evidence But to satisfie you fully as to the Law in this matter I shall here recite an Adjudged Case that of Bushel in the Two and Twentieth year of His Majesty reported by the Learned Sir John Vaughan whose Book is Licensed by the present Lord Chanceller the Lord Chief Justice North and all the Judges then in England the said Case begins fol. 135 and continues to 150. The whole well worth reading but I shall only select certain passages The Case was this Bushel and others of a Jury having at a Sessions not found Pen and Mead Two Quakers Guilty of a Traspass Contempt unlawful Assembly and Tumult whereof they had been Indicted were Fined Forty Pound a Man and Committed till they should pay it Bushel brings his Habeas Corpus and upon the return it appeared he was Committed For that contrary to Law and against full and clear Evidence openly given in Court and against the directions of the Court in mat-of Law they had acquited the said W. P. and W. M. to the great obstruction of Justice c. Which upon solemn Argument was by the Judges resolved to be an insufficiant cause of Fineing and Committing them and they were discharg'd and afterwards brought Actions for their Damage The Reasons of which Judgment are reported by Judge Vaughan and amogst them he useth these that follow which I shall give you in his own Words Fol. 140. One fault in the Retorn is That the Jurors are not said to have acquitted the Persons Indicted against full and manifest Evidence Corruptly and knowing the said Evidence to be full and manifest against the Persons Indicted for how manifest soever the Evidence was if it were not manifest to them and that they Believed it such it was not a Fineable fault nor deserving Imprisonment upon which difference the Law of punishing Jurors for false Verdicts principally depends And fol. 141. I would know whether any thing be more Common than for two Men Students Barristers or Judges to deduce contrary and opposite Conclusions out of the same Case in Law And is there any difference that two Men should infer distinct Conclusions from the same Testimony Is any thing more known than that the same Author and place in that Author is forceably urg'd to maintain contrary Conclusions and the Decision hard which is in the right Is any thing more frequent in the Controversies of Religion than to press the same Texts for opposite Tenets How then comes it to pass that two persons may not apprehend with Reason and Honesty what a Witness or many say to prove in the understanding of one plainly one thing but in the apprehension of the other clearly the contrary thing must therefore one of these Merit Fine and Imprisonment because he doth that which he cannot otherwise do preserving

his Oath and Integrity And this often is the Case of the Judge and the Jury And fol. 142 I Conclude therefore That this Retorn Charging the Prisoners to have acquitted P. and M. against full and manifest Evidence first and next without saying that they did know and believe that Evidence to be full and manifest against the Indicted Persons is no Cause of Fine and Imprisonment In the Margent of that fol. 142. it is thus noted Of this mind were ten Judges of Eleven the Chief Baron Turnor gave no Opinion because not at the Argument And in the same fol. 142. he saith The Verdict of a Jury and Evidence of a Witness are very different things in the truth and falsehood of them A Witness Swears but to what he hath heard or seen generally or more largely to what hath fallen under his senses But a Jury man swears to what he can Infer and Conclude from the Testimony of such Witnesses by the Act and Force of his Vnderstanding to be the Fact inquired after which differs nothing in Reason though much in the Punishment from what a Judge out of various Cases consider'd by him infers to be the Law in the question before him If the meaning of these words finding against the direction of the Court in matter of Law be That if the Judge having heard the Evidence given in Court for he knows no other shall tell the Jury upon this Evidence the Law is for the Plaintiff or for the Defendant and you are under the pain of Fine and Imprisonment to find accordingly and the Jury ought of duty so to do Then Every Man sees that the Jury is but a troublesome delay great Charge and no use in determining right and wrong and therefore the Tryals by them may be better Abolished than Continued which were a strange New found Conclusion after a Tryal so Celebrated for many hundred years It is true if the Jury were to have no other Evidence for the Fact but what is deposed in Court the Judge might know their Evidence and the Fact from it equally as they and so direct what the Law were in the Case though even then the Judge and Jury might honestly differ in the Result from the Evidence as well as two Judges may which often happens But the Evidence which the Jury have of the Fact is much otherwise then that For 1. Being returned of the Vicinage where the Cause of Action ariseth the Law supposeth them thence to have sufficient Knowledge to Try the Matter in Issue and so they must though no Evidence were given on either Side in Court but to this Evidence the Judge is a Stranger 2. They may have Evidence from their own Personal Knowledge by which they may be assured and sometimes are that what is deposed in Court is absolutely false but to this the Judge is a Stranger and he knows no more of the Fact than he hath learned in Court and perhaps by false Depositions and consequently knows nothing 3. The Jury may know the Witnesses to be Stigmatized and Infamous which may be unknown to the Parties and consequently to the Court. Fol. 148. To what end is the Jury to be Returned out of the Vicinage where the Cause of Action ariseth To what end must Hundredors be of the Jury whom the Law supposeth to have neerer knowledge of the Fact than those of the Vicinage in general To what end are they Challenged so scrupulously to the Array and Poll To what end must they have such a certain Free-hold and be Probi Legales homines and not of affinity with the Party concerned To what end must they have in many Cases the View for their exacter Information chiesly To what end must they undergo the heavy Punishment of the Villainous Judgment if after all this they implicitly must give a Verdict by the Dictates and Authority of another Man under Pains of Fines and Imprisonment when sworn to do it according to the best of their own knowledge A Man cannot see by anothers Eye nor hear by anothers Ear no more can a Man conclude or infer the thing to be resolved by anothers Understanding or Reasoning And though the Verdict be right the Jury give yet they being not assured that it is so from their own Understanding are forsworn at least in Foro Conscientiae Fol. 149. And it is absurd to Fine a Jury for finding against their Evidence when the Judge knows but part of it for the better and greater part of the Evidence may be wholly unknown to him and this may happen in most Cases and often doth THUS far Judge Vaughan whose Words I have faithfully recited which I conceive will be sufficient to silence this Controversie for ever and stop the Mouths of all those scandalous Observators Heraclitus's and other yelping Curs which so impudently have presumed to Bark or Hiss against the Legal Verdicts of some late Grand-Juries London Printed for William Inghall the Elder 1681.