The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1908-11-24
SOME TORRID TALK FROM
FORMER JUDGE HUMPHREYS
A Dissertation on Bench, Bar, Law and Bust
ness Interests Which He Sent to Chief
Justice HartWeII.

as the judges. However desirable it
might be in legal controversies invOlv-
/ ing rights of property or the liberty
/ of the citizen, if every fact which
might have the slightest possible bear
/ ing on the issue could be adduced, il
! is manifest that the limitations which
! surround judicial tribunals render this
impossible. BY way of illustration, if
/ it is claimed that A has assaulted B,
( there are many classes of facts which
would influence the judgment of per-
sons investigating the controversy,
which would not be received in courts
of justice; the general estimation in
which the parties are held in the com
munity, the opinions and comments of
neighbors as to the merits of the con
troversv the fact that one of the par
ties has frequently been engaged in
similar troubles, would all be matters
which might have considerable weight
in an extra judicial investigations; but
# testimony of this character were TO
be uniformly admitted in actions of
assault, or other controversies. the ex-
penses and delays of litigation would
be so oppressive that parties might
better submit to wrong in silence, or
an unjust Judgment, than incur the
OUTLAWS and hazards of a lawsuit. 1t
is true that reformers have zealously
attacked and broken down many of
the artificial barriers which formerly
prevented suitors from bringing facts,
on which they relied, to the ear of
the court or jury, but it is unlikely
that the courts of civilized countries
will ever seek to administer Justice
without the use of fixed and, to some
extent, arbitrary rules of evidence. 1t
is clear beyond dispute that most of
the rules which in our courts govern
the introduction of facts for the dis
,covery of the truth, are very closely
associated with that institution so
dear to the Anglo-Saxon race, namely,
trial by jury.
In a celebrated case Lord Mansfield
called attention to the fact that, Gin
Scotland and most of the continental
states, the judges determine. upon the
facts in dispute as well as upon the law,
and they think there is no danger in
their listening to evidence of hearsay,
because when they come to consider
their judgment they feel that they can
trust themselves to entirely disregard
the hearsay evidence, or to give it any
little weight which it may seem to de-
serve; but in England, where the Jury
are the sole judges of the facts, hear.
say evidence is properly excluded, be-
cause no man can tell what effect it
might have upon their minds"
AS was well said by the Supreme
Court of Massachusetts, in Ellis VS..
Short, 81 Pick 142: Chow can the court
know how much influence each particu-
lar piece of evidence had upon the
minds of the jury, or that the evidence
wrongfully admitted was not the
weight, however small, which turned
the balance, and that, without it, the
opposite scale would not have prepon-
derated?" And that great court pro-
ceeded to say that when the appellate
court begins to indulge in theories as to
what did or did not influence the. jury,
the province of the jury is trenched
upon. believe in definite, fixed and
certain rules of law, rather than in