Word: right
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...kind of homely advice which the astute Medina has made a legal stock in trade. "If you once get yourself in a frame of mind where you know that you have a task ahead and it has to be done carefully and it has to be done just right," he said, rocking gently back & forth beneath the Stars & Stripes and the Great Seal of the United States, "then there comes a certain calm and peace of mind which are the essence of the administration of justice...
...from Judge Medina's charge to the jury) ". . .These defendants had the right to advocate by peace ful and lawful means any and all changes in the laws and in the Constitution; they had the right to criticize the President of the United States and the Congress; they had the right to assert that World War II, prior to the invasion of Russia by Germany, was an unjust war, an imperialist war and that upon such invasion it became a just war worthy of all material and moral support ; and they had the right publicly to express these views...
...They had a right thus to assert that what they call the democracy of Russia is superior in all respects to American democracy. They had a right thus to assert that the Marshall Plan was a mistake, that billions of dollars should be loaned to Russia and that legislation adversely affecting Communists should not be passed. Whether you or I or anyone else likes or dislikes such or similar and analogous views ... is ... not entitled to the slightest consideration in deciding this case...
Unless a minority had a right to express and to advocate its views, the democratic process as we understand it here in America would cease to exist and those in power might remain there indefinitely and make impossible any substantial changes in our social and economic system...
...realm of ideas you must acquit them . . . Do not be led astray by talk about thought control, or putting books on trial. No such issues are before you here. "But no one could suppose nor is it the law that any person has an absolute and unbridled right to say or to write and to publish whatever he chooses under any and all circumstances...