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Page Number: 38.0

6 

SEC v. JARKESY 

GORSUCH, J., concurring 

thoroughly  modern  development,  the  British  government
and  its  agents  engaged  in  a  strikingly  similar  strategy  in 
colonial  America. 
Colonial  administrators  routinely 
steered  enforcement  actions  out  of  local  courts  and  into 
vice-admiralty  tribunals  where  they  thought  they  would 
win more often.  These tribunals lacked juries.  They lacked 
truly independent judges.  And the procedures materially
differed  from  those  available  in  everyday  common-law 
courts. 

The vice-admiralty courts in the Colonies began as rough
equivalents  of  English  courts  of  admiralty.  E.  Surrency,
The Courts in the American Colonies, 11 Am. J. Legal Hist.
347,  355  (1967).  These  courts  generally  concerned  them-
selves  with  maritime  matters  arising  on  “the  oceans  and
rivers  and  their  immediate  shores.”  C.  Ubbelohde,  The 
Vice-Admiralty  Courts  and  the  American  Revolution  19 
(1960)  (Ubbelohde).  And  the  proceedings  they  used  ac-
corded  more  with  civil  law  traditions  than  common  law 
ones.    Among  other  things,  this  meant  officials  could  try 
cases against colonists without a jury.  Id., at 21. 

Confined to admiralty disputes, perhaps the lack of a jury 
would have proven unexceptional (as juries were not usu-
ally required in such cases then, nor are they today).  See, 
e.g., Lewis v. Lewis & Clark Marine, Inc., 531 U. S. 438, 448 
(2001).  But  Parliament  deployed  these  juryless  tribunals
in the Colonies to new ends that, according to John Adams,
could fill “ ‘volumes.’ ”  Ubbelohde vii.  The creep away from
the original province of those courts began with the grant
of  authority  over  violations  of  certain  trade  and  customs
laws.  But  in  the  decade  before  the  Revolution,  the  drip,
drip, drip of expanding power became a torrent, as Parlia-
ment allowed more and more actions to be brought in colo-
nial vice-admiralty courts.

Many of the matters added to vice-admiralty jurisdiction 
in the Colonies would have required juries in England.  Id., 
at 112.  But as the Massachusetts royal governor explained,