This case illustrates an important defect in the law with regard to the revision of verdicts and judgments in the United States Circuit Court.  In almost all other courts, an application for a new trial on the ground of erroneous rulings by the judge, is made to a higher and independent tribunal.  In this court, however, an application for a new trial is addressed to and decided by the same judge who tried the case, and whose erroneous rulings are complained of.  Such a motion was made and argued by Miss Anthony’s counsel before Judge Hunt, who refused to grant a new trial.  Thus it was Judge Hunt alone who was to decide whether Judge Hunt was wrong.  It is manifest that the opportunity for securing justice even before the most honest of judges, would be somewhat less than before an entirely distinct tribunal, as the judge would be prejudiced in favor of his own opinion, and the best and most learned of judges are human and fallible; while if a judge is disposed to be unfair, it is perfectly easy for him to suppress all attempts of a party injured by his decision to set it aside.

The only remedy for a party thus wronged is by an appeal to the public.  Such an appeal, as a friend of justice and of the law, without regard to Miss Anthony’s case in any other aspect, the writer makes in this article.  The public, thus the only appellate tribunal, should willingly listen to such a case, and pass its own supreme and decisive judgment upon it.

The writer cannot but regard Judge Hunt’s course as not only irregular as a matter of law, but a very dangerous encroachment on the right of every person accused to be tried by a jury.  It is by yielding to such encroachments that liberties are lost.