England · Legal history
Stephen’s retrospective account of English criminal law, including the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century trial practices discussed in Crawford.
Requested text available. Collection target: 1883 first edition, Volume I
James Fitzjames Stephen · Volume 1 · 1883
Robarts Library, University of Toronto; digitized by Internet Archive with Microsoft funding. Complete Volume I on sequence review and sampled images. Stephen describes politically important trials from 1554 to 1637 and adds that many prisoners appeared satisfied with depositions. His account is retrospective, published 92 years after the Sixth Amendment’s ratification. Stephen describes practice from 1640 onward and acknowledges the absence of precise, clear authority for the legal entitlement until long after the Revolution. The surrounding account distinguishes humane practice from established legal authority. The title page identifies the 1883 Volume I. This is retrospective history, not a treatise published at the Sixth Amendment’s ratification. Printed pages 326 and 358 correspond to PDF pages 346 and 378. Both opinion citations and the historical passages were visually checked.
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Antonin Scalia · Opinion of the Court
Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36, 43 (2004).
Scalia quotes Stephen’s description of prisoners demanding that their accusers appear face to face when the prosecution relied on depositions and accomplice confessions. The surrounding text identifies a recurring demand in sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century trials; it does not say the demand was invariably granted.
Antonin Scalia · Opinion of the Court
Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36, 45 (2004).
Scalia cites Stephen’s account of a change in criminal trials after 1640: witnesses generally appeared face to face, with special reasons such as sickness justifying depositions. Stephen also discusses cross-examination, defense witnesses, and uncertainty about the legal source of these practices.
Stephen describes politically important trials from 1554 to 1637 and adds that many prisoners appeared satisfied with depositions. His account is retrospective, published 92 years after the Sixth Amendment’s ratification.
Stephen describes practice from 1640 onward and acknowledges the absence of precise, clear authority for the legal entitlement until long after the Revolution. The surrounding account distinguishes humane practice from established legal authority.
The title page identifies the 1883 Volume I. This is retrospective history, not a treatise published at the Sixth Amendment’s ratification.
Printed pages 326 and 358 correspond to PDF pages 346 and 378. Both opinion citations and the historical passages were visually checked.