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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: A CASE ON APPEAL. ADDRESS BY LEONARD J. HACKNEY. Gentlemen of tlie Indiana State Bar Association: The topic assigned me for this occasion was suggested by the fact that many good lawyers in active practice entertain erroneous impressions of some of the methods of our courts of appeal in the disposition of causes, and, from such impressions, often unjustly criticise. Criticism, if intelligent and just, is valuable and is not, as a rule, undesired by the judges. Ignorant and unreasonable criticism of the courts is harmful to the best interests of society. Its tendency is to make cowards of the judges, since it often brings them before the public in the light of ridicule and often in contempt before the political party of which they are members, especially if the decision criticised involves some question of party interest. No criticism is more unreasonable and unjust at this time than that which omits an intelligent consideration of the correctness of the decision made, judged from the legal principles involved, and which rests solely upon the fact that it is for or against a particular class or interest. In these days of organization and combination, including the interests of political parties, of capital, of labor, of the liquor traffic, and of those opposed to that traffic, decisions are numerous which affect favorably or unfavorably the interests of some of such classes. If the court is to be buffetted about between favorable criticism by the successful class and unfavorable criticism by the defeated class, regardless of the rules of law involved, then we are in danger of our courts leaning towards the most powerful class and thereby adding oppression to the weaker. While I do not for an instant concede that the courts of Indiana, or those of any other State, are b...