Opinion ID: 308599
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Ellis, the Jeffersonian Crisis (Oxford Press, 1971) passim, and see Ch. XIII

Text: The articles of impeachment of Justice Chase included charges that he had failed to instruct juries on their power to disregard the judge's instructions. His vigorous defense of his course was in terms like those later developed by Justice Story in United States v. Battiste, see infra. On this, as on other articles, the radical Republicans were defeated. Evans, Report of the Trial of the Hon. Samuel Chase. 38 See IV Pound, Jurisprudence (West Pub. Co. 1959) pp. 8-9 [F]ear of arbitrary judicial action . . . was especially strong in the United States because in seventeenth-century England (the time of colonizing America) the criminal law, in the hands of appointees of the crown subject to arbitrary removal, had been found an effective agent of political and religious persecution. . . . Colonial justice was long executive or legislative. There had been but little experience of true judicial justice with the checks upon judicial action which the common law tradition and pressure of professional opinion provided. 39 See e. g., State v. Burpee, 65 Vt. 1, 34-35, 25 A. 964, 974 (1892), overruling State v. Croteau, 23 Vt. 14 (1849). In State v. Wilkinson, 2 Vt. 480, 531-532 (1829), the court had laid down that although the principle that the jury is to determine the law in criminal cases represents a departure from logical symmetry, it is a safeguard against tyranny in the law, and one of the law's great landmarks for all who view liberty and law as almost synonymous. 40 Wyley v. Warden, 372 F.2d 742 (4th Cir. 1967), cert. denied, 389 U.S. 863, 88 S.Ct. 121, 19 L.Ed.2d 131 (1967). In holding the provision of the Maryland Constitution consistent with the Federal Constitution, Judge Sobeloff noted that a practice may be deemed unwise, yet not be unconstitutional. He referred to the potent and persuasive arguments . . leveled against the wisdom of the Maryland practice, and the various jurists' analyses condemning it as archaic, outmoded and atrocious, unique and indefensible, an antique constitutional thorn in the flesh of Maryland's body of Criminal Law. In Maryland the juries must be told the judge's instructions on the law are only advisory. In Indiana, a similar constitutional provision was attenuated by a decision that a trial court in a criminal case is not required to neutralize the effect of its instructions by telling the jury that they are at liberty to disregard them, and to decide the law for themselves. Bridgewater v. State, 153 Ind. 560, 566, 55 N.E. 737, 739 (1889). 41 Horning v. District of Columbia, 254 U.S. 135, 138, 41 S.Ct. 53, 54, 65 L.Ed. 185 (1920) (jury power to render illogical and inconsistent verdicts) 42 Steckler v. United States, 7 F.2d 59, 60 (2d Cir. 1920) 43 See Kalven and Zeisel, op cit. supra note 33, p. 427 44 E. g., Scheflin, Jury Nullification: The Right to Say No, 45 So.Calif.L.Rev. 168, 182 (1972) 45 See R. Pound, Law in Books and Law in Action, cited supra note 32, at p. 35: The clash of departments or even of officials, so characteristic of our polity, the extreme decentralization that allows a local jury or even a local prosecutor to hold up instead of uphold the law of the state, the elaborate machinery of check, balance and subdivision which the Puritan jealousy of the magistrate has fixed in our institutions, too often result in a legal paralysis of legal administration. 46 See Pound, The Causes of Popular Dissatisfaction with the Administration of Justice, 29 ABA Rpts. 395, 401 (1906). He discourses on the necessarily mechanical operation of legal rules, as a penalty of uniformity; the inevitable difference in rate of progress between law and public opinion; the invalidity of the popular assumption that anyone is competent for the task of administration of justice (The public seldom realizes how much it is interested in maintaining the highest scientific standard in the administration of justice.) 47 National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement (1931), Report No. 8 (Criminal Procedure) pp. 26-27. See also R. Pound, Jurisprudence, quoted supra note 38 48 See Judge Rifkind's comments in Follow-Up/The Jury, Center Magazine, 64-65 (July, 1970) 49 Kadish and Kadish, supra, note 36, 59 Calif.L.Rev. at 926 50 Sax, Conscience and Anarchy: The Prosecution of War Resistors, 57 Yale Review 481, 490 (1968) 51 See Apodaca v. Oregon, 406 U.S. 404, 92 S.Ct. 1628, 32 L.Ed.2d 184 (1972); Johnson v. Louisiana, 406 U.S. 356, 92 S.Ct. 1620, 32 L.Ed.2d 152 (1972) 52 See Justice Fortas's comments in Follow-Up/The Jury, op. cit. supra, note 48, at 61 53 Compare the London Juror's Petition of September 6, 1831, protesting against undue use of capital punishment. That in the present state of the law, juries feel extremely reluctant to convict where the penal consequences of the offence excite a conscientious horror on their minds, lest the rigorous performance of their duty as jurors should make them accessory to judicial murder. Hence in Courts of Justice, a most unnecessary and painful struggle is occasioned, by the conflict of the feelings of a just humanity with the sense of the obligation of an oath. See Appendix 4, at p. 731, of L. Radzinowicz, The Movement for Reform, 1750-1833, A History of English Criminal Law (Macmillan 1948) But jurors sufficiently beset by the strain respond on their own to a call of higher conscience they believe strong and clear. Indeed in 1830 the bankers of England formally petitioned the Commons to abolish capital punishment for forgery because this prevented convictions and thus endangers the property which it is intended to protect. Radzinowicz, op. cit. supra, Appendix 3, p. 730. (The Petition of Bankers from 214 Cities and Towns, May 24, 1830) Blackstone refers to the pious perjury under which jurors understated the value of articles stolen in order to avoid the capital charge. 4 Comm. 239. Professor Radzinowicz (op. cit. supra, at ch. 3, and 4) develops this and other lenity practices of grand and petit juries in the 18th and 19th centuries, and even includes (p. 94, fn. 49) an instance wherein Lord Mansfield-a strict judge-advised a jury to find a gold trinket of less value than 40 shillings. When the prosecutor indignantly exclaimed that its fashion alone was worth double that, Lord Mansfield observed, God forbid, gentlemen, we should hang a man for fashion's sake. 54 Finally, ladies and gentlemen, you are not trying the Vietnam War. The Vietnam War is not an issue in this case. You are not trying ideas. You are not trying the United States. You are not trying society. You are not trying any individual, any corporation, large or small. For there can be no freedom, no equal opportunity in an environment of criminal behavior. No nation should tolerate disregard of the law As Mr. Justice Goldberg said in the recent Supreme Court case of Cox against Louisiana [379 U.S. 559, 85 S.Ct. 476, 13 L.Ed.2d 487]: The constitutional guarantee of liberty implies the existence of an organized society maintaining public order without which liberty itself would be lost. And he went on further to say in that case: We also reaffirm the repeated decisions of this Court that there is no place for violence in a democratic society dedicated to liberty under law, and that the right of peaceful protest does not mean that everyone with opinions or beliefs to express may do so at any time and at any place. There is a proper time and place for even the most peaceful protest and a plain duty and responsibility on the part of all citizens to obey all valid laws and regulations. If you find that the Government has proven beyond a reasonable doubt that one or more of the defendants committed each of the elements comprising the crimes of second degree burglary and/or malicious destruction of property, then I must instruct you further that the law does not recognize as a defense to either of these charges that the defendants were motivated to commit their acts by sincere political, religious or moral convictions or in obedience to some higher law. Individuals who believe that the Vietnam War is illegal or immoral or that certain activities of the Dow Company are undesirable have the right under our system of government to express their views or to protest these events by any lawful means, such as by peaceful picketing or parading. But the Constitution of the United States does not protect as a form of symbolic speech the destruction of private property and the violation of valid laws designed to protect society. The defendants may have been motivated by the highest moral principles, and they may have been sincerely and passionately inspired. But such motives do not confer immunity from prosecution or conviction for the violation of a valid law, and as such the motives of the defendants are not controlling in the case which is before you for decision. Therefore, if you find beyond a reasonable doubt that one or more of the defendants had the required intent to commit one or more of the offenses with which they are charged, then it is no defense that he or she also had one or more other intentions, reasons, purposes or motives, such as to protest against the Vietnam War or the activities of the Dow Company; nor is it a defense that he or she acted from sincere, religious motives, or that he or she believed that his or her intent was justified by some higher law. (Tr. 825-827.) 55 Starr v. United States, 153 U.S. 614, 626-628, 14 S.Ct. 919, 38 L.Ed. 841 (1894) (court advocated defendant's guilt to the jury in a long address); Quercia v. United States, 289 U.S. 466, 53 S.Ct. 698, 77 L.Ed. 1321 (1933) (judge expressed opinion that defendant was a liar); Hardy v. United States, 118 U.S. App.D.C. 253, 335 F.2d 288 (1964) (judge stated government's case as affirmative facts); Blunt v. United States, 100 U.S.App.D.C. 266, 244 F.2d 355 (1957) (judge stated matter in issue as a fact, and in other respects advocated the prosecution's position) 1 Majority opinion at 1136 and n. 52, quoting Fortas, Follow-Up/The Jury, Center Magazine 61 (July, 1970) 2 See Williams v. Florida, 399 U.S. 78, 100, 90 S.Ct. 1893, 26 L.Ed.2d 446 (1970); Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 145, 155-156, 88 S.Ct. 1444, 20 L.Ed.2d 491 (1968); United States v. Spock, 416 F.2d 165, 180-182 (1st Cir. 1969); United States v. Bennett, 148 U.S.App. D.C. 364, at 368, 460 F.2d 872, at 876 (1972); United States v. Eichberg, 142 U.S.App.D.C. 110, 113, 439 F.2d 620, 623 (1971) (Bazelon, C. J., concurring); Scheflin, Jury Nullification: The Right to Say No, 45 S.Cal.L.Rev. 168, 187-88 (1972) In Duncan the Supreme Court stated: A right to jury trial is granted to criminal defendants in order to prevent oppression by the Government. Those who wrote our constitutions knew from history and experience that it was necessary to protect against unfounded criminal charges brought to eliminate enemies and against judges too responsive to the voice of higher authority.    Providing an accused with the right to be tried by a jury of his peers gave him an inestimable safeguard against the corrupt or overzealous prosecutor and against the complaint, biased, or eccentric judge.    Fear of unchecked power, so typical of our State and Federal Governments in other respects, found expression in the criminal law in this insistence upon community participation in the determination of guilt or innocence. 391 U.S. at 155-156, 88 S.Ct. at 1451. 3 See generally Scheflin, supra, note 2; H. Kalven & H. Zeisel, The American Jury 310-11 (1966); J. Alexander, A Brief Narration of the Case and Trial of John Peter Zenger (1963); cf. Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 145, 155-156, 88 S.Ct. 1444, 20 L.Ed.2d 491 (1968) 4 Transcript at 825-27: Finally, ladies and gentlemen, you are not trying the Vietnam war. The Vietnam war is not an issue in this case. You are not trying ideas. You are not trying the United States. You are not trying society. You are not trying any individual, any corporation large or small. For there can be no freedom, no equal opportunity in an environment of criminal behavior. No nation should tolerate disregard of the law. As Mr. Justice Goldberg said in the recent Supreme Court case of Cox v. Louisiana: The constitutional guarantee of liberty impiles the existence of an organized society maintaining public order without which liberty would be lost. We also reaffirm the repeated decisions of this court that there is no place for violence in a democratic society dedicated to liberty under law, and that the right of peaceful protest does not mean that everyone with opinions or beliefs to express may do so at any time and at any place. There is a proper time and place for even the most peaceful protest and a plain duty and responsibility on the part of all citizens to obey all valid laws and regulations. If you find that the Government has proven beyond a reasonable doubt that one or more of the defendants committed each of the elements comprising the crimes of second degree burglary and/or malicious destruction of property, then I must instruct you further that the law does not recognize as a defense to either of these charges that the defendants were motivated to commit their acts by sincere political, religious or moral convictions or in obedience to some higher law. Individuals who believe that the Vietnam War is illegal or immoral or that certain activities of the Dow Company are undesirable have the right under our system of government to express their views or to protest these events by any lawful means, such as by peaceful picketing or parading. But the Constitution of the United States does not protect as a form of symbolic speech the destruction of private property and the violation of valid laws designed to protect society. The defendants may have been motivated by the highest moral principles, and they may have been sincerely and passionately inspired. But such motives do not confer immunity from prosecution or conviction for the violation of a valid law, and as such the motives of the defendants are not controlling in the case which is before you for decision. Therefore, if you find beyond a reasonable doubt that one or more of the defendants had the required intent to commit one or more of the offenses with which they are charged, then it is no defense that he or she also had one or more other intentions, reasons, purposes, or motives, such as to protest against the Vietnam War or the activities of the Dow Company. Nor is it a defense that he or she acted from sincere, religious motives, or that he or she believed that his or her intent was justified by some higher law. 5 I do not contend that the jury is the exclusive spokesman of the community conscience. When the legislature enacts a criminal prohibition it too speaks on behalf of that conscience. But I cannot assume that every criminal statute enacts a rule of liability without fault. The legislative function is to define and proscribe certain behavior that is generally considered blameworthy. That leaves to the jury the responsibility of deciding whether special factors present in the particular case compel the conclusion that the defendant's conduct was not blameworthy 6 Holloway v. United States, 80 U.S.App.D.C. 3, 4-5, 148 F.2d 665, 666-667 (1945), quoted in Durham v. United States, 94 U.S.App.D.C. 228, 242, 214 F.2d 862, 876 (1954) 7 Morissette v. United States, 342 U.S. 246, 252, 72 S.Ct. 240, 96 L.Ed. 288 (1952) (emphasis supplied). See also United States ex rel. McCann v. Adams, 126 F.2d 774, 775-776 (2d Cir. 1942) (L. Hand, J.), rev'd on other grounds, 317 U.S. 269, 63 S.Ct. 236, 87 L.Ed. 268 (1962); Hart, The Aims of the Criminal Law, 23 Law & Contemp.Probs. 401 (1958) The nullification doctrine derives from the same moral principles as the mens rea or responsibility defense. But in view of my conclusion that the trial judge should have granted a nullification instruction, it is unnecessary for me to decide whether reversal would be required on the theory that the instruction that was offered effectively directed the jury to make a finding that the defendant possessed the necessary mens rea. Compare majority opinion at 1137-1138. 8 See Williams v. Florida, 399 U.S. 78, 100, 90 S.Ct. 1893, 26 L.Ed.2d 446 (1970); Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 145, 155-156, 88 S.Ct. 1444, 20 L.Ed.2d 491 (1968); United States ex rel. McCann v. Adams, supra; cf. A. Gold-stein, The Insanity Defense 91 (1967): [The insanity defense] is a normative standard applied to conflicting clusters of fact and opinion by a jury, an institution which is the traditional embodiment of community morality and, therefore, well suited to determining whether a particular defendant, and his act, warrant condemnation rather than compassion. See also Robinson v. Diamond Housing Corp., 150 U.S.App.D.C. 17, 29, 463 F.2d 853, 865 (1972). 9 See Scheflin, supra note 2, at 226 n. 188 10 See, e. g., Trial and Terror, Newsweek (Nov. 4, 1946), reprinted in Racial Violence in the United States 161-62 (Grimshaw ed. 1969) 11 See Carter v. Jury Comm'n, 396 U.S. 320, 90 S.Ct. 518, 24 L.Ed.2d 549 (1970); Turner v. Fouche, 396 U.S. 346, 90 S.Ct. 532, 24 L.Ed.2d 567 (1970) 12 See Scheflin, supra note 2, at 177 13 H. Kalven & H. Zeisel, supra note 3, at 296-97. Jury nullification also provides us with crucial information about the morality of the death penalty. See McGautha v. California, 402 U.S. 183, 199, 91 S.Ct. 1454, 1463, 28 L.Ed.2d 711 (1971): In order to meet the problem of jury nullification, legislatures did not try, as before, to refine further the definition of capital homicides. Instead they adopted the method of forthrightly granting juries discretion which they had been exercising in fact. 14 Compare Sparf & Hansen v. United States, 156 U.S. 51, 15 S.Ct. 273, 39 L.Ed. 343 (1895) 1 Defendants argue that the right to proceed pro se is both Constitutional and absolute. But not all Constitutional rights are absolute. Indeed, the right to be represented by counsel may be intelligently and knowingly waived, Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U.S. 458, 58 S.Ct. 1019, 82 L.Ed. 1461 (1937), and the right to discharge one attorney for another after the trial has begun is subject to the trial court's discretion, see Evans v. Ockershausen, 69 U.S.App.D.C. 285, 100 F.2d 695 (1938). Other rights, such as the very important right to be present during the trial itself, may be waived by obstreperous conduct. Illinois v. Allen, 397 U.S. 337, 90 S.Ct. 1057, 25 L.Ed.2d 353 (1970). The considerations deemed important in Allen apply to a case such as this In another case, it may be important to distinguish the source of the right to proceed pro se. If that right is Constitutional in origin, as held in United States v. Plattner, 330 F.2d 271 (2d Cir. 1964), then any violation of that right at all might require a remand for new trial, despite the absence of prejudice. See id., at 273, and the cases cited in footnote 2 therein. On the other hand, if the right is statutory only, then it may be subject to the harmless error doctrine. Similarly, if the right here asserted is enshrined in the Constitution, rather than established by statute, then a much more serious question regarding waiver would be presented. However, these questions need not be decided in this case because the record here clearly establishes a waiver of the right to proceed pro se, even if such right is deemed Constitutional in nature. 2 Mr. Justice Black, writing for the majority, expressed the concerns of the bench, the bar, and the majority of citizens who were aware of what was occurring:    But our courts, palladiums of liberty as they are, cannot be treated disrespectfully with impunity. Nor can the accused be permitted by his disruptive conduct indefinitely to avoid being tried on the charges brought against him. It would degrade our country and our judicial system to permit our courts to be bullied, insulted, and humiliated and their orderly progress thwarted and obstructed by defendants brought before them charged with crimes. As guardians of the public welfare, our state and federal judicial systems strive to administer equal justice to the rich and the poor, the good and the bad, the native and foreign born of every race, nationality, and religion. Being manned by humans, the courts are not perfect and are bound to make some errors. But, if our courts are to remain what the Founders intended, the citadels of justice, their proceedings cannot and must not be infected with the sort of scurrilous, abusive language and conduct paraded before the Illinois trial judge in this case. 397 U.S. at 346-347, 90 S.Ct. at 1062. Justice Brennan, recognizing the importance of orderly trials, also set forth his views in a concurring opinion:    The degree of liberty and equality that exists today has been the product of unceasing struggle and sacrifice. Much remains to be done-so much that the very institutions of our society have come under challenge. Hence, today, as in Lincoln's time, a man may ask 'whether [this] nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure'. It cannot endure if the Nation falls short on the guarantees of liberty, justice, and equality embodied in our founding documents. But it also cannot endure if we allow our precious heritage of ordered liberty to be ripped apart amid the sound and fury of our time. It cannot endure if in individual cases the claims of social peace and order on the one side and of personal liberty on the other cannot be mutually resolved in the forum designated by the Constitution. If that resolution cannot be reached by judicial trial in a court of law, it will be reached elsewhere and by other means, and there will be grave danger that liberty, equality, and the order essential to both will be lost. Id. at 348, 90 S.Ct. at 1063. And Justice Douglas, also cognizant of the threat posed by the strategy of disruption, stated in a separate opinion: I agree with the Court that a criminal trial, in the constitutional sense, cannot take place where the courtroom is a bedlam and either the accused or the judge is hurling epithets at the other. A courtroom is a hallowed place where trials must proceed with dignity and not become occasions for entertainment by the participants, by extraneous persons, by modern mass media, or otherwise.  See Mayberry v. Pennsylvania, 400 U.S. 455, 91 S.Ct. 499, 27 L.Ed.2d 532 (1971). The need for the contempt issue to be determined by a different judge means that the trial judge must take pains to develop a clear and complete record permitting a sound and fair resolution