Vice Admiralty Court
Vice admiralty courts were juryless courts located in British colonies that were granted jurisdiction over local legal matters related to maritime activities, such as disputes between merchants and seamen. Judges were given 5% of confiscated cargo if they found a smuggling defendant guilty. This gave judges financial incentive to find defendants guilty.
Famous quotes containing the words vice and/or court:
“No legislation can suppress nature; all life rushes to reproduction; our procreative faculties are matured early, while passion is strong, and judgment and self-restraint weak. We cannot alter this, but we can alter what is conventional. We can refuse to brand an act of nature as a crime, and to impute to vice what is due to ignorance.”
—Tennessee Claflin (1846–1923)
“GOETHE, raised o’er joy and strife,
Drew the firm lines of Fate and Life,
And brought Olympian wisdom down
To court and mar, to gown and town,
Stooping, his finger wrote in clay
The open secret of to-day.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)