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Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon
91 quotes
“Some modern cases have in my opinion gone too far.”
Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon (1732–1802) first seen 1797 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Walford v. Duchess de Pienne (1797), 2 Esp. 555.
“Whatever might have been my opinion, had this been a new case, I must hold myself bound by decided cases.”
Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon (1732–1802) first seen 1797 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Cross v. Glode (1797), 2 Esp. 575.
“A plaintiff who comes into a Court of justice must show that he is in a condition to maintain his action.”
Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon (1732–1802) first seen 1797 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Morton v. Lamb (1797), 7 T. R. 129.
“Precedent goes in support of justice.”
Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon (1732–1802) first seen 1797 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Smith v. Bowles (1797), 2 Esp. 578.
“Notwithstanding all the care and anxiety of the persons who frame Acts of Parliament to guard against every event, it frequently turns out that certain cases were not foreseen.”
Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon (1732–1802) first seen 1797 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Farmer v. Legg (1797), 7 T. R. 190.
“We ought not to decide hastily against the words of an Act of Parliament.”
Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon (1732–1802) first seen 1797 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: King v. Justices of Flintshire (1797), 7 T. R. 200.
“Proceedings at law are sufficiently expensive.”
Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon (1732–1802) first seen 1797 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Marriott v. Hampton (1797), 2 Esp. 548.
“I hope that there is no jealousy, or even ground of jealousy, on the part of the Americans, but that they know that when their rights come to be discussed here the greatest attention will be paid to their interests. They have long been acquainted with the habits of this country, and with the mode of administering justice here : until within these few years their causes used to come over here to be discussed, and I never heard that the decisions in our Courts ever awakened the least jealousy in the breasts of the inhabitants of that country.”
Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon (1732–1802) first seen 1798 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Wilson v. Marryat (1798), 8 T. R. 44.
“The liberty of the press is dear to England; the licentiousness of the press is odious to England: the liberty of it can never be so well protected as by beating down the licentiousness.”
Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon (1732–1802) first seen 1799 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Cuthell's Case (1799), 27 How. St. Tr. 674.
“A man may publish anything which twelve of his countrymen think not blamable.”
Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon (1732–1802) first seen 1799 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Cuthell's Case (1799), 27 How. St. Tr. 675.
“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 (1732–1802) first seen 1799 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Trial of the Earl of Thanet, and others (1799), 27 How. St. Tr. 939.
“Counsel are frequently induced, and they are justified in taking the most favourable view of their clients' case; and it is not fair to pass over any piece of evidence they find difficult to deal with, provided they cite, fairly and correctly, those parts of the evidence they comment upon.”
Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon (1732–1802) first seen 1799 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Trial of the Earl of Thanet, and others (1799), 27 How. St. Tr. 940.
“I can't look to contingencies.”
Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon (1732–1802) first seen 1799 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Sikes v. Marshal (1799), 2 Esp. 707.
“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 (1732–1802) first seen 1799 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Wakefield's Case (1799), 27 How. St. Tr. 736.
“All Governments rest mainly on public opinion, and to that of his own subjects every wise Sovereign will look. The opinion of his subjects will force a Sovereign to do his duty, and by that opinion will he be exalted or depressed in the politics of the world.”
Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon (1732–1802) first seen 1799 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Trial of John Vint and others (1799), 27 How. St. Tr. 640.
“The learned counsel has very properly avoided all political discussions unconnected with the subject, and I shall follow his example. Courts of justice have nothing to do with them.”
Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon (1732–1802) first seen 1799 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Trial of John Vint and others (1799), 27 How. St. Tr. 640.
“If an infant commit an assault, or utter slander, God forbid that he should not be answerable for it in a Court of justice.”
Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon (1732–1802) first seen 1799 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Jennings v. Rundall (1799), 8 T.R. 337.
“A Court of equity knows its own province.”
Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon (1732–1802) first seen 1800 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Mayor, &c. of Southampton v. Graves (1800), 8 T. R. 592.
“Though in a state of society some must have greater luxuries and comforts than others, yet all should have the necessaries of life; and if the poor cannot exist, in vain may the rich look for happiness or prosperity. The legislature is never so well employed as when they look to the interests of those who are at a distance from them in the ranks of society. It is their duty to do so: religion calls for it; humanity calls for it; and if there are hearts who are not awake to either of those feelings, their own interests would dictate it.”
Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon (1732–1802) first seen 1800 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Rex v. Rusby (1800), Peake's N. P. Cases 192.
“The common law, though not to be found in the written records of the realm, yet has been long well known. It is coeval with civilised society itself, and was formed from time to time by the wisdom of man. Good sense did not come with the Conquest, or at any other one time, but grew and increased from time to time with the wisdom of mankind.”
Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon (1732–1802) first seen 1800 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Rex v. Rusby (1800), Peake's N. P. Cases, 193.
“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 (1732–1802) first seen 1800 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: King v. Waddington (1800), 1 East, 157.
“We must judge of a man's motives from his overt acts.”
Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon (1732–1802) first seen 1800 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: King v. Waddington (1800), 1 East, 158.
“It is our duty to take care that persons in pursuing their own particular interests do not transgress those laws which were made for the benefit of the whole community.”
Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon (1732–1802) first seen 1800 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: King v. Waddington (1800), 1 East, 158.
“I have often thought since that there is sound sense in what was once said by the late Lord C. J. Eyre, that the sooner a bad precedent was gotten rid of, the better.”
Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon (1732–1802) first seen 1800 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: King v. Stone (1800), 1 East, 648 n. (a).
“Justice requires that a party should be duly summoned and fully heard before he is condemned.”
Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon (1732–1802) first seen 1800 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: King v. Stone (1800), 1 East, 649.
“It is necessary for Courts of Justice to hold a strict hand over summary proceedings before magistrates, and I never will agree to relax any of the rules by which they have been bound. Their jurisdiction is of a limited nature, and they must shew that the party was brought within it.”
Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon (1732–1802) first seen 1800 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: King v. Stone (1800), 1 East, 650.
“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 (1732–1802) first seen 1801 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Cuming v. Sharland (1801), 1 East, 413.
“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 (1732–1802) first seen 1801 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Peaceable v. Read and others (1801), 1 East. 573.
“If I were master of eloquence I would not make the decision of this cause a stage upon which I would display that eloquence. Those things which are very proper for advocates to do, become very improper for the Judge, who has nothing to do, but to state to the jury the short grounds upon which the cause ought to proceed.”
Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon (1732–1802) said by 1802 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have heard that it was the perfection of the administration of criminal justice to take care that the punishment should come to few and the example to many.”
Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon (1732–1802) said by 1802 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To enter into the hearts of men belongs to him who can explore the human heart.”
Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon (1732–1802) said by 1802 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1732–1802) said by 1802 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Lefroy, C.J., Persse v. Kinneen (1859), (Lr. Rep.) L. T. Vol. 1 (N. S.), 78.
“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 (1732–1802) said by 1802 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 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.
“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 (1732–1802) first seen 1783 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Proceedings against the Dean of St. Asaph (1783), 21 How. St. Tr. 875.
“It cannot but occur to every person's observation, that as long as parties exist in the country (and perhaps it is for the good of the country that parties should exist to a certain degree, because they keep ministers on their guard in their conduct), they will have their friends and adherents. A great political character, who held a high situation in this country some years ago, but who is now dead, used to say that ministers were the better for being now and then a little peppered and salted. And while these parties exist, they will have their friendships and attainments, which will sometimes dispose them to wander from argument to declamation.”
Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon (1732–1802) first seen 1234 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Holt's Case (1793), 22 How. St. Tr. 1234.
“With regard to the construction of statutes according to the intention of the legislature, we must remember that there is an essential difference between the expounding of modern and ancient Acts of Parliament. In early times the legislature used (and I believe it was a wise course to take) to pass laws in general and in few terms; they were left to the Courts of law to be construed so as to reach all the cases within the mischief to be remedied. But in modern times great care has been taken to mention the particular cases in the contemplation of the legislature, and therefore the Courts are not permitted to take the same liberty in construing them as they did in expounding the ancient statutes.”
Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon (1732–1802) first seen 1793 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Bradley and another v. Clark (1793), 5 T. R. 201.
“Really I wish I was more acquainted than I am, with the course of criminal jurisdiction—if the question had never been decided, I should have extreme doubts upon it, and those extreme doubts which I should have would lead me in a criminal case to do otherwise than I should do in a civil case—in every civil case [I speak in the hearing of a great many professional gentlemen] wherever I have serious doubts, I follow the doctrine which I have collected to be laid down by Lord Hardwicke; I receive the evidence, giving the jury the best instruction I can upon the effect of it; and I do it in the case of civil proceedings, without running the risk of doing any hurt, because if I receive it improperly, a season will come when the Court can correct my error.”
Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon (1732–1802) first seen 1272 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Stone's Case (1796), 25 How. St. Tr. 1272.
“It was said by a very learned Judge, Lord Macclesfield, towards the beginning of this century that the most effectual way of removing land marks would be by innovating on the rules of evidence; and so I say. I have been in this profession more than forty years, and have practised both in Courts of law and equity; and if it had fallen to my lot to form a system of jurisprudence, whether or not I should have thought it advisable to establish two different Courts with different jurisdictions, and governed by different rules, it is not necessary to say. But, influenced as I am by certain prejudices that have become inveterate with those who comply with the systems they found established, I find that in these Courts proceeding by different rules a certain combined system of jurisprudence has been framed most beneficial to the people of this country, and which I hope I may be indulged in supposing has never yet been equalled in any other country on earth. Our Courts of law only consider legal rights: our Courts of equity have other rules, by which they sometimes supersede those legal rules, and in so doing they act most beneficially for the subject. We all know that, if the Courts of law were to take into their consideration all the jurisdiction belonging to Courts of equity, many bad consequences would ensue. To mention only the single instance of legacies being left to women who may have married inadvertently: if a Court of law could entertain an action for a legacy, the husband would recover it, and the wife might be left destitute: but if it be necessary in such a case to go into equity, that Court will not suffer the husband alone to reap the fruits of the legacy given to the wife; for one of its rules is that he who asks equity must do equity, and in such a case they will compel the husband to make a provision for the wife before they will suffer him to get the money. I exemplify the propriety of keeping the jurisdictions and rules of the different Courts distinct by one out of a multitude of cases that might be adduced. . . . One of the rules of a Court of equity is that they cannot decree against the oath of the party himself on the evidence of one witness alone without other circumstances: but when the point is doubtful, they send it to be tried at law, directing that the answer of the party shall be read on the trial; so they may order that a party shall not set up a legal term on the trial, or that the plaintiff himself shall be examined; and when the issue comes from a Court of equity with any of these directions the Courts of law comply with the terms on which it is so directed to be tried. By these means the ends of justice are attained, without making any of the stubborn rules of law stoop to what is supposed to be the substantial justice of each particular case; and it is wiser so to act than to leave it to the Judges of the law to relax from those certain and established rules by which they are sworn to decide.”
Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon (1732–1802) first seen 1798 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Bauerman v. Eadenius (1798), 7 T. R. 667.
“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." 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.”
Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon (1732–1802) first seen 1800 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 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…
“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 (1732–1802) first seen 1800 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Rex v. Rusby (1800), Peake's N. P. Ca. 193.
“The situation the Lord Mayor holds is the first officer of the first city in the world in point of commerce and riches, and everything that can constitute the magnificence of a city. He is a judicial officer, and a municipal officer too, and from these combined characters there are duties incumbent upon him, which by all the ties that can bind a man to the discharge of duty, he is bound to discharge. It stands at the head of his duties, next after protecting the religion which binds us to God, to govern that civil policy which binds government together, and prevents us from being a state of anarchy and confusion.”
Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon (1732–1802) said by 1802 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source