Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon: Trending quotes (page 5)

“If people with the very best intentions carry on prosecutions that are oppressive, the end may not always perhaps sanctify the means.”

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon

Williams' Case (1797), 26 How. St. Tr. 704.

People

“I cannot help observing, that many of those who have written in support of our ancient system of jurisprudence, the growth of the wisdom of man for so many ages, are not as they are alleged by some to be men writing from their closets without any knowledge of the affairs of life, but persons mixing with the mass of society, and capable of receiving practical experience of the soundness of the maxims they inculcate.”

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon

King v. Waddington (1800), 1 East, 157.

Life , Wisdom , Men , Age

“I desire that after I have given the judgment of the Court, that judgment may not be talked about; I have given it upon my oath, and am answerable to my country for it. I have been before reminded that these things are not passing in a corner, but in the open face of the world; I hope I need not be admonished that I am to administer justice; if I have done amiss, let the wrath and indignation of Parliament be brought out against me; let me be impeached; I am ready to meet the storm whenever it comes, having at least one protection; the consciousness that I am right. In protecting the dignity of the Court, I do the best thing I can do for the public: for if my conduct here is extra-judicially arraigned, the administration of justice is arraigned and affronted, and that no man living shall do with impunity.”

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon

Proceedings against the Dean of St. Asaph (1783), 21 How. St. Tr. 875.

World , Justice , Hope , Country

“My Lord… it would be well if you would stick to your good law and leave off your bad Latin.”

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon

George III of the United Kingdom; reported in John Campbell, The Lives of the Chief Justices of England: From the Norman Conquest till the death of Lord Tenterden (2006), p. 58.
About

Law

“I have been reminded that I sit here as counsel for the defendant. I certainly do so, so far as to interpose between him and the counsel for the prosecution, and to see that no improper use of the law is made against him, and that no improper evidence is given to the jury: but the Judge has another task to perform, which is that of assisting the jury in the administration of justice.”

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon

Wakefield's Case (1799), 27 How. St. Tr. 736.

Justice , Law

“No person is less disposed than I am to accommodate the law to the particular convenience of the case: but I am always glad when I find the strict law and the justice of the case going hand in hand together.”

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon

Peaceable v. Read and others (1801), 1 East. 573.

Justice , Law , Personality

“I must treat with reverence everything which Lord Kenyon has said: but not everything which text writers have represented him to have said, which he did not say.”

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon

Lefroy, C.J., Persse v. Kinneen (1859), (Lr. Rep.) L. T. Vol. 1 (N. S.), 78.
About

“The interest of the public is never better advanced than when we can inculcate by our rules the advantage of acting honestly.”

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon

Cuming v. Sharland (1801), 1 East, 413.

“We are obliged to hear all that witnesses have to say; but it is a canticle of Courts of justice that witnesses non numerentur sed ponderentur: they are not to be numbered but weighed. It is the nature of the human mind, it is the perfection of the human heart, to serve a friend in distress; but in doing so, a man should not transgress the higher calls of religion and morality, the obligations of an oath. We are not monks and recluses, as was said in another place,1 but come from a class in society that I hope and believe gives us opportunities of seeing as much of the world, and that has as much virtue amongst its members as any other, however elevated.”

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon

Rex v. Rusby (1800), Peake's N. P. Ca. 193.

World , Religion , Justice , Hope

“In dispensing the criminal justice of the country, we have sometimes an arduous task to perform. It is not a pleasant thing, most certainly, to condemn any one of our fellow creatures to punishment; but those who are entrusted with the administration of the criminal justice of a country, must summon up their fortitude, and render justice to the public, as well as justice tempered with mercy to the individual.”

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon

Trial of the Earl of Thanet, and others (1799), 27 How. St. Tr. 939.

Justice , Country

“There are certain irregularities which are not the subject of criminal law. But when the criminal law happens to be auxiliary to the law of morality, I do not feel any inclination to explain it away.”

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon

Young and others v. The King (1789), 3 T. R. 102.

Law , Feeling

“The natural leaning of our minds is in favour of prisoners; and in the mild manner in which the laws of this country are executed, it has rather been a subject of complaint by some that the Judges have given way too easily to mere formal objections on behalf of prisoners, and have been too ready on slight grounds to make favourable representations of their cases. Lord Hale himself, one of the greatest and best men who ever sat in judgment, considered this extreme facility as a great blemish, owing to which more offenders escaped than by the manifestation of their innocence.”

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon

We must, however, take care not to carry this disposition too far, lest we loosen the bands of society, which is kept together by the hope of reward, and the fear of punishment. It has been always considered, that the Judges in our foreign possessions abroad were not bound by the rules of proceeding in our Courts here. Their laws are often altogether distinct from our own. Such is the case in India and other places. On appeals to the Privy Council from our colonies, no formal objections are attended to, if the substance of the matter or the corpus delicti sufficiently appear to enable them to get at the truth and justice of the case.
King v. Suddis (1800), 1 East, 314. Lord Kenyon is later reported to have written, "I once before had occasion to refer to the opinion of a most eminent Judge, who was a great Crown lawyer, upon the subject, I mean Lord Hale; who even in his time lamented the too great strictness which had been required in indictments, and which had grown to be a blemish and inconvenience in the law; and observed that more offenders escaped by the over easy ear given to exceptions in indictments than by their own innocence". King v. Airey (c. 1800), 2 East, 34.

Law , Country , Nature , Way