His Honor was of the opinion that the defendant had a right to whip his wife with a switch no larger than his thumb, and that upon the facts found in the special verdict he was not guilty in law.
Court Cases Quotes
Marriage is a vital social institution. The exclusive commitment of two individuals to each other nurtures love and mutual support; it brings stability to our society. For those who choose to marry, and for their children, marriage provides an abundance of legal, financial, and social benefits. In return it imposes weighty legal, financial, and social […]
Under the 1940 Act it was necessary only to have a conviction based upon religious training and belief… Within that phrase would come all sincere religious beliefs which are based upon a power or being, or upon a faith, to which all else is subordinate or upon which all else is ultimately dependent. The test […]
Stand up, Alfred Packer, you voracious man-eating son of a bitch. There were seven Democrats in Hinsdale Country and you ate five of them! I sentence you to hang until you are dead, dead as a warning against reducing the Democratic population of the state.
The law has outgrown its primitive stage of formalism when the precise word was the sovereign talisman, and every slip was fatal. It takes a broader view today. A promise may be lacking and yet the whole writing may be “instinct with an obligation,” imperfectly expressed… If that is so, there is a contract.
The Constitution is a written instrument. As such its meaning does not alter. That which it meant when adopted, it means now. Being a grant of powers to a government, its language is general, and as changes come in social and political life it embraces in its grasp all new conditions which are within the […]
Our constitutional tradition, from the Declaration of Independence and the first inaugural address of Washington… down to the present day, has, with a few aberrations . . ., ruled out of order government-sponsored endorsement of religion – even when no legal coercion is present, and indeed even when no ersatz, “peer-pressure” psycho-coercion is present – […]
The explanation lies in the lesson of history that was and is the inspiration for the Establishment Clause, the lesson that in the hands of government what might begin as a tolerant expression of religious views may end in a policy to indoctrinate and coerce. A state-created orthodoxy puts at grave risk that freedom of […]
The Establishment Clause, unlike the Free Exercise Clause, does not depend upon any showing of direct governmental compulsion and is violated by the enactment of laws which establish an official religion whether those laws operate directly to coerce nonobserving individuals or not. U. S. Supreme Court, Wallace v.
No person can be punished for entertaining or professing religious beliefs or disbeliefs, for church attendance or nonattendance.
