Justice Is Not To Be Taken By

There Are Vogues And Fashions In Jurisprudence As In Literature And Art And Dress.

Due Process Is A Growth Too Sturdy To Succumb To The Infection Of The Least Ingredient Of Error.

Code Is Followed By Commentary, And Commentary By Revision, And Thus The Task Is Never Done.

What Has Once Been Settled By A Precedent Will Not Be Unsettled Overnight, For Certainty And Uniformity Are Gains Not Lightly Sacrificed. Above All Is This True When Honest Men Have Shaped Their Conduct On The Faith Of The Pronouncement.

As I Search The Archives Of My Memory I Seem To Discern Six Types Or Methods [of Judicial Writing] Which Divide Themselves From One Another With Measurable Distinctness. There Is The Type Magisterial Or Imperative; The Type Laconic Or Sententious; The Type Conversational Or Homely; The Type Refined Or Artificial, Smelling Of The Lamp, Verging At Times Upon Preciosity Or Euphuism; The Demonstrative Or Persuasive; And Finally The Type Tonsorial Or Agglutinative, So Called From The Shears And The Pastepot Which Are Its Implements And Emblem.