John Eardley Wilmot - Judges Quotes

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It is a strange, wild jurisdiction, where the jurors are judges both of law and fact, and ignorant country fellows2 are to determine the nicest points of law.

John Eardley Wilmot

I have always thought that formerly there was too confined a way of thinking in the Judges of the common law Courts, and that Courts of equity have risen by the Judges not properly applying the principles of the common law, being too narrowly governed by old cases and maxims, which have too much prevented the public from having the benefit of the common law.

John Eardley Wilmot

You all very well know what deference I always pay, and ever will, to that part of the office of a jury which properly belongs to them. In regard to the law, I have always been as tenacious of the proper function of a Judge, as I have been of that of the jury. I never will, while I have the honour of executing the office of a Judge, attempt to controul or influence their minds in respect of damages; but only submit to them such observations as occur to me upon the evidence.

John Eardley Wilmot