Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 06.pdf/548

 Contrasts in English Criminal Law. Justice of the Common Pleas, replied : " All our books do forbid allowing of counsel in the point of treason." (1 State Trials.p. 82.)

us tic.

509

him to speak to them. The judges in reply refused his request, immediately overruled his points, alleging that counsel were not

„cciis-A-fdj6zk SIR MATTHEW HALE.

On the trial of Sir Henry Vane for high treason, in the fourteenth year of Charles II., he suggested five different points of law, which he prayed the court to consider, and earnestly requested to have counsel assigned

allowable in criminal cases for life, and asserting that if it be held in criminal cases for life, then every felon in Newgate might plead the same, and so there would be no jail delivery. Upon which Vane pointed