The origin of some heavy legal terms

[tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May)]

At 12:10 PM 12/11/95, Black Unicorn wrote:

>The term 'pressing a defendant for a plea' came from the practice of
>piling heavy weights on a defendant and 'pressing' him into the very
>floor of the court. (As defendants who did not admit a plea would save
>their family from being held accountable to judgment, the incentive to
>remain silent was high).  Often weight was piled atop the hapless
>defendant until he or she expired, having refused to enter a plea.

Modern courts have replaced the rocks used in earlier days with law books,
of course. The need for heavy law books to press the accused is one of the
main reasons electronic versions are not being adopted.

This practice also gave us the term "the full weight of the law" as well as
the symbol of the law as being a blind woman carrying a scale filled with
rocks to place upon the guilty to convince them to confess. (This was
originally done in the court's torture chamber, from which we get the term
"judge's chamber.")

Sometimes the "scales of justice" can be "tipped," which derives from the
practice of tipping the judge to get favorable rulings.

--Tim "Not a Lawyer" May