Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 12.pdf/492

 Oaths. to its respectability. It has the direct effect also of lessening the confidence of the public in the purity of the bench; for however up right the judges may be, the looseness with which they administer justice, has an appear ance of indifference and callousness, with re spect to the solemnities with which the law has surrounded them, which cannot but lower them in the estimation of others. There can be no two opinions about this matter. The purity of testimony in courts depends, in a great measure, upon the efficacy of the oath upon the mind of the witness; and that oath will be respected or dispised by the careless and the ignorant, in the exact proportion in which they see it treated with contempt or respect by the more intelligent. If the judges are whispering, the clerk sit ting, and the lawyers cracking their jokes, during the repetition of the oath, can a by stander be blamed for considering that an idle ceremony, which is thus disregarded by the officers of justice? And will not the habit of swearing in common conversation appear less criminal, and less a breach of good man ners, among a people who are in the daily ex perience of hearing the name of God flip pantly and familiarly used, under the imme diate sanction of the highest functionaries of the law? The remedy for this abuse is easy. The oath should be administered with becoming solemnity. The crier should command

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silence, the clerk should rise, the business in hand should be for the moment suspended, the judges should give attention, and the oath should be enunciated in an audible voice. The proper respect would then be paid to this rite, which is an appeal to God, which cannot be made innocently, or effectually, un less it be made with reverence. The atten tion of the spectators would be drawn to the person taking the oath, who would feel the importance of the pledge which he was giving in the presence of his assembled fellow-citi zens, and the whole scene would wear an as pect of decorum, which would throw around the court the sanctity properly appertaining to such a tribunal, and without which it can never be either efficient or respectable. We have not the least doubt that a judi cious action on these points by our legisla tures and courts, the first reducing the mul tiplicity of oaths, never requiring them to be administered on trivial occasions, and strictly enjoining that such as might be thought nec essary, should be taken in public and with due solemnity, and the latter substituting for the levity which has heretofore .attended this branch of judicial duty, a becoming gravity would tend not only to the advancement of justice, but would do much towards purifying public sentiment, in reference to the vulgar and alarming profanity which now disgraces every rank of society in our country.