THE DEFEAT OF JUSTICE by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Dec 21, 1888

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 14, No. 49.

THE DEFEAT OF JUSTICE.

By Editor

DEFEATS of justice have become so common nowadays that they excite little or no remark except in extreme instances. Especially is this true in criminal cases, though even in civil suits it is difficult for one who has not an abundance of money to get justice. Why this is so is well told in the following extract from an editorial in the Oakland Enquirer of November 28:—

“The curse of the legal profession, in respect to the habit of mind fostered in lawyers, is that most of the time the best lawyers are employed against the State instead of for it. The lawyers who are able to make the largest incomes from their practice will not accept the moderate salaries paid to public prosecutors, and it is not often that they care to assume the dignities of a judgeship. Thus it comes that many lawyers spend their lives in trying to beat the civil and criminal laws of the Government under which they live, and it is sometimes surprising that they do not despise themselves for the uniform success of their attempts. It is unquestionably true that every accused person has the right to have the best presentation of his defense which the facts admit of, and that defending criminals is reputable business for lawyers, when it is reputably conducted. But twenty or thirty years of this, unmixed with any experience of public advocacy, will certainly narrow and dwarf the mind, if anything can, and stifle all generosity of sentiment.

“In other words, a lawyer is not a good citizen when he subordinates everything to his profession and cares not whether the laws be good or bad so long as he makes his fees. We need only look at the history of San Francisco and California to be satisfied that many of the leading lawyers of the past thirty years have been men of this class. If it is true that the law is a noble profession the nobility of it must be sought in something else than in breaking up public statutes which were drawn for the public good but without sufficient skill, or in fighting legal battles with absolute disregard of the right or wrong, justice or injustice, involved. Cases of this sort are inseparable from the practice of law, but the lawyer who does not rise high enough in sentiment to feel at all times that the laws ought to be executed alike upon the rich and the poor, and that the statutes should be made strong enough to withstand the attacks of millionaire criminals, is really no ornament to society. The responsibility of the lawyer for the perfection of the law is of no ordinary kind, because he spends his life in studying it and commenting on it; therefore, if he is not willing to give of his knowledge and his experience for the benefit of the public, the loss is a very sensible one.”

The design of the law, and of courts of law, is to guarantee to every man his rights, to protect life, person, and property, and it ought to be the purpose of every member of every court to carry out fully the spirit of the law; but such is seldom the ruling principle in the legal breast. Lawyers undertake cases not simply with the determination that their clients shall have their rights, but that they shall have all the advantage which can possibly be gained for them by whatever means. The legal profession needs renovation, but there is small hope that it will ever be better than it is now. So long as Mammon holds sway in the hearts of men, lawyers will work, not for right and justice, but for money, for place, and for power.