Word: court
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1940-1949
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...court agreed. In a chatty decision written by 77-year-old Judge Learned Hand, the court gently deplored Schmidt's "moment of what may have been unnecessary frankness." But "recent investigations . . . have disclosed-what few people would have doubted in any event-that his practice is far from uncommon." It was necessary to consider "what people generally feel...
...Even though we could take a poll," the court mused, "... a majority of the votes of those in prisons and brothels, for instance, ought scarcely to outweigh the votes of accredited churchgoers." Besides, there were precedents: aliens living in common-law marriage had been admitted. "We have now to say whether it makes a critical difference that the alien's lapses are casual, concupiscent and promiscuous, but not adulterous." In fact, concluded Judge Hand, he and his two colleagues did not see any such difference, and ruled that Schmidt should be made a U.S. citizen...
...charge against Yamashita was that he had "unlawfully disregarded and failed to discharge his duty as commander to control the operations of the members of his command, permitting them to commit brutal atrocities . . . thereby violated the Laws of War." This charge, described by the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Wiley Rutledge as "vagueness if not vacuity," laid down a new principle-that a commander is a criminal if his men violate the Laws of War, whether he ordered the violations or even knew of them...
Army brass tried to block them, but Yamashita's lawyers wangled an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. A majority of the high justices in Washington, without passing on the fairness of Yamashita's trial, refused to accept jurisdiction. They declared it was a matter for MacArthur to review. SCAP's chief promptly hailed Yamashita's conviction as "beyond challenge," and sentence was executed...
...Supreme Court minority of two-the late Justices Frank Murphy and Wiley Rutledge-dissented in grave words. They were appalled by the "wide departure from any semblance of trial as we know that institution." Warned Murphy: "[Yamashita's trial] is unworthy of the traditions of our people . . . The high feelings of the moment doubtless will be satisfied. But in the sober afterglow will come the realization of the boundless and dangerous implications . . . No one in a position of command in an army, from sergeant to general, can escape those implications...