Walter M. Chandler > Quotes

“Indeed a peculiar rule of Hebrew law provided that if the verdict was instantaneous and unanimous it was invalid and could not stand. If the prisoner had not a single friend in court, the element of mercy was wanting in the verdict, said the ancient Hebrews, and the proceedings were regarded in the light of conspiracy and mob violence. A”
― Walter M. Chandler, The Trial of Jesus from a Lawyer's Standpoint, Vol. I (of II) The Hebrew Trial

“HEBREW CRIMINAL LAW—COURTS AND JUDGES T THE Hebrew tribunals were three in kind: the Great Sanhedrin; the Minor Sanhedrin; and the Lower Tribunal, or the Court of Three.”
― Walter M. Chandler, The Trial of Jesus from a Lawyer's Standpoint, Vol. I (of II) The Hebrew Trial

“Lower Tribunals.—The lowest order of Hebrew tribunal was the Court of Three, composed of judges selected by the litigants themselves. The plaintiff chose one member, the defendant selected another, and these two chose a third.”
― Walter M. Chandler, The Trial of Jesus from a Lawyer's Standpoint, Vol. I (of II) The Hebrew Trial

“There were no lawyers or advocates. These judicial disputants have been known to every other system of enlightened jurisprudence. But there were no Ciceros, Erskines, Choates among the ancient Hebrews. The judges were the defenders as well as the judges of the accused. It may be easily read between the lines that the framers and builders of the Hebrew judicial system regarded paid advocates as an abomination and a nuisance. King Ferdinand, of Spain, seems to have had the Hebrew notion when, more than a thousand years after Jerusalem fell, he sent out colonists to the West Indies, with special instructions "that no lawyers should be carried along, lest lawsuits should become ordinary occurrences in the New World." [120] Ferdinand evidently agreed with Plato that lawyers are the plague of the community. [121]”
― Walter M. Chandler, The Trial of Jesus from a Lawyer's Standpoint, Vol. I (of II) The Hebrew Trial