3 ms·
Roper: So now you'd give the Devil benefit of law! More: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil? Roper: I'd cut down
by archgoon 8y ago
Roper: So now you'd give the Devil benefit of law!
More: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
Roper: I'd cut down every law in England to do that!
More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you — where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast — man's laws, not God's — and if you cut them down — and you're just the man to do it — d'you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake.
-- A Man For All Seasons
- arethuza 8y agoThe UK suspended trial by jury in Northern Ireland during the Troubles with the so-called "Diplock Courts": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplock_courts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplock_courts With the benefit of hindsight they appear to have done more harm than good in that they played into the Republican strategy of making NI ungovernable by normal means.
- wahern 8y agoYour link ultimately led me to the Criminal Justice Act of 2003 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_Justice_Act_2003 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_Justice_Act_2003) and the 2010 trial of a bankrobber, the "first criminal trial without a jury to take place in England and Wales in more than 400 years". (https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2010/jan/10/heathrow-robbery-trial-jury-twomey https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2010/jan/10/heathrow-robbery-...) That 2003 law also created an exemption for Double Jeopardy. I guess Parliamentary Supremacy finally defeated the Magna Carta.