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In 2022 the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade with their ruling on a case called Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, allowing states to pass severely restrictive anti-abortion laws. In the majority opinion Justice Alito referenced a 17th century jurist named Sir Matthew Hale no less than eight times.

Season Two of Chainsaw History begins as podcasting siblings Jamie and Bambi dissect the baffling and infuriating influence of Sir Matthew Hale, a 17th-century English jurist with outdated ideas (even for his time!). They talk about how Hale relates to modern American law, particularly concerning women's rights and sexual assault. Get ready for a wild ride through history with Hale's Puritan-flavored nonsense and the lingering consequences of his backward beliefs.

Here's what you can expect from this hilarious and eye-opening episode:

• The life and times of Judge Hale, Puritan extraordinaire (oh, joy!).
• How religion mixed with his legal opinions like a bad cocktail.
• Hale's role in witch trials and other bizarre legal endeavors.
• Coverture, the ultimate marital buzzkill, suppressing women's legal rights.
• Sir Matthew Hale's cringeworthy views on rape, consent, and the credibility of women.
• How the "Hale rule" crawled into modern American law, casting doubt on rape victims' testimonies.
• The California Supreme Court finally giving the Hale rule a much-deserved kick to the curb.

Jamie and Bambi can't believe that Sir Matthew Hale's ideas still manage to haunt women's rights and legal proceedings in the United States, centuries after he kicked the bucket. It's time to say goodbye to these ancient, harmful perspectives and let progress reign supreme.

CW: In this episode we discuss challenging topics including sexual violence and abortion.

In this episode recommend people donate to RAINN to help victims of sexual violence or help out at a local domestic violence shelter. We also express support and solidarity with the Atlanta Forest Defenders and encourage you to learn more and help stop Cop City.

Mentioned in this episode:

Stop Cop City!

The destruction of our forests and the militarization of our police is an issue of national concern. Please visit DefendTheAtlantaForest.org to learn more and stand in solidarity with the movement to defend the Weelaunee Forest in Atlanta.

So what do you want to talk about that the internet, you don't mind them hearing about?

I don't know.

Honestly, I'm good with just saying, starting with fuck Oprah and like welcome to Chainsaw

History because that's how I feel today.

You're just in a fuck Oprah kind of a mood.

I'm just in a fuck Oprah kind of mood.

You know, I've never been in a fuck Oprah kind of a mood.

I mean, you know, or how about an Oprah fuck off kind of a mood.

I just remember when I worked at the bookstore in college, I just witnessed the power of

Oprah when she was, when she had her book club and then all the wine moms would empty

the shelves of whatever she recommended or talked about.

Yeah, I know.

And that's, that's how we got, we all know about Jillian Flynn and that's great, but

Oprah sucks.

Fuck Oprah.

Sure.

So wait, wait, wait, wait.

What the hell?

Where, where are we?

We're in our new home.

So yeah, welcome to season two of Chainsaw History where we're actually taking it slightly

seriously.

This is the show where we take respected foundational figures in history and ruin them for you forever.

Like Oprah?

Like Oprah.

Oh, are we going to do Oprah one day?

Probably just because I hate her so much.

I'm your host Jamie Chambers and this is my sister Bambi.

Hello.

Real quick, just know we are a comedy podcast.

I'm not a historian.

I'm just a guy who reads a lot and swears even more.

Oh, I'm, I'm just here for the lulz.

Oh, you'll get some of those today.

If you go to chainsawhistory.com, you can hear our entire back catalog, check out paid

subscription options that include bonus content and other new exciting stuff.

One day maybe even merch.

But first things first, let's put in a content warning.

This is the first time we've actually done this despite some of the nasty shit we've

talked about in the past in season one.

But I think it's important for everybody to know going in, we will be discussing topics

including sexual violence and abortion.

And if that's not your thing, it's totally cool.

If you want to skip this one, we'll be, in two weeks we'll be back to a more traditional

piece of shit.

So far, yeah.

So what you're telling me is I just need to buckle up?

Yeah.

So let's, let's start with a question.

Have you ever known of a man, sorry, have you ever heard of a man known to history as

Sir Matthew Hale?

Sounds vaguely familiar.

Vaguely.

It is because I'm sure you heard me ranting about this sometime last year.

It's the reason why I chose this topic.

So it's not surprising if you haven't heard of him or at least doesn't come to

the front of your mind because this guy's been dead for 347 years.

So let me ask you a different question.

Do you know any Americans who have a uterus?

Yeah.

I'm like 50, like 51% of them.

So you might remember a little case ruled on last year by the United States Supreme

Court.

Oh.

Dobbs versus Jackson Women's Health Organization.

You do want me to start breaking things, don't you?

For those who don't know, it was a case that made its way up to the high court from

the enlightened state of Mississippi, who had been passing laws restricting abortion

since 2018 in a very specific attempt to get the now conservative-leaning court to overturn

Roe versus Wade.

And it worked.

Motherfuckers.

Despite assurances during their Senate confirmation hearings that they considered Roe settled

law, justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett eagerly voted with their other conservative

judges to strip the legal rights from about half the U.S. population.

You remember that, right?

Oh, I remember.

I remember quite vividly.

I woke up one day not having as many rights as I did the day before, and it pissed me

the fuck off.

It's about states' rights.

States have more rights than you.

So corpses have more rights than me.

This is a history podcast, not politics or recent events, so we won't be talking about

any of the above shitty judges.

Our subject today once again died.

The guy we're talking about today has been dead for almost 350 years.

And you might ask, what the fuck does a guy who was born just after the reign of Queen

Elizabeth I have any say in the reproductive rights of women in the 21st century?

Yeah, they just shouldn't.

Really good fucking question.

I mean, you know what, they also used to, you know, burn witches at the stake or just

hang them.

You know what?

We're going to be talking about something.

I'm sure we are.

Spoiler alert for part two.

In his majority opinion for the High Court made official on June 24, 2022, Justice Alito

claimed that the only reason the Roe case was upheld in the 90s, and that was a challenge

known as Planned Parenthood versus Casey, that all they could do is uphold Roe since

the court is supposed to follow prior decisions in most instances.

It's a legal precept called stare decisis, the idea that in most cases you follow precedent.

That's the sort of the foundation of all law.

So what he's saying is, well, Roe was voted on and because the court at the time was split,

all they could really do is just sort of say, oh, well, we'll hold on for Roe now and wait

until we have a better chance to get rid of it later.

And he also makes the argument that the earlier court was incorrect.

He's saying that Roe was a bad ruling because it didn't take into account enough history

in legal precedent.

Alito essentially argues that because women's reproductive rights and rights in general

were restricted for so long, it was not the court's place to overturn centuries of common

and statutory laws with Roe.

Okay.

So I mean, my math isn't great, but 300 years ago, isn't that still before America?

Yes.

So we're not even like going by the laws of this country, but by a previous one?

Yes.

So.

Oh, fuck him so hard.

So just listen.

So, so hard.

We're just getting started.

Oh, God.

So this is, so Alito writes, this is in the majority opinion published last year that

the, you know, the groundbreaking, the first time civil rights have ever been rolled back

in the history of our country.

So quoting this decision, this is Justice Alito writing, we begin with the common law

under which abortion was a crime, at least after a quickening, i.e. the first felt movement

of the fetus in the womb, which usually occurs between the 16th and 18th week of pregnancy.

Two treatises by Sir Matthew Hale described abortion of a quick child who died in the

womb as a great crime and a great misprision, unquote.

Just last year.

So, okay.

So why does a 300 year old dead motherfucker get any goddamn say?

That's a very important question.

That's basically the whole point of what we're going to be talking about here.

So 300 years ago, they didn't even know about germs.

But it's sort of like, you know, understanding that we started as, our country started as

British colonies and Britain and so the common law of England was the basis for even modern

American law.

But you're about to see, so we'll, let me keep going because this is just, we're going

to scratch the surface here.

But we only had germ theory for like 150 years.

Yeah.

Louis Pasteur, you know, 19th century.

So Alito goes on to explain that Hale and the other great legal minds of their day ruled

that a doctor who performed an abortion that caused the death of the patient would be treated

differently than if said doctor performed any other kind of medical procedure.

So in other words, sort of the idea is you treat a doctor who kills a patient doing an

abortion differently.

So like a doctor tried to take out your appendix and you died on the table, the doctor wouldn't

be charged with murder because they were trying to save your life, but it just didn't work

out.

But if he, but if he gave you an abortion drug that killed you, that would be treated

potentially as a crime.

So that's, that's kind of Alito's reasoning here of that, that automatically means abortions

are categorized differently than other medical procedures in his view.

So quote, a physician performing an abortion would be guilty of a crime precisely because

his aim was an unlawful one, unquote.

So in the opinion that stripped basic rights from roughly 167 million people, Justice Alito

cited Sir Matthew Hale no less than eight times along with some other legal figures

of that same era.

We're talking the 17th century England.

So I'm going to throw up the thoughts and legal opinions of this dead guy, Sir Matthew

Hale apparently holds such tremendous weight that they began to undo civil rights established

in America in the 20th century.

And now they're being rolled back citing this dude, Matthew Hale.

So who the hell was this guy and why should we accept anything he has to say?

We just shouldn't.

I mean, we should just end the show right there because it's, it's patently obvious.

However, we're going to do the, we're going to, we're going to have to talk about this

asshole because unfortunately my rights were snatched away.

Do you want to know how many fucking men have said, well, are you going to have any more

kids?

No.

Well then why do you care?

Well, cause there's still a possibility I could get pregnant and possibly die from it.

Well, regardless of that, then why are only old white men the ones making these laws in

the first place?

Your argument is just defeated itself.

Shut the fuck up.

All right.

So let's learn who this guy, uh, Matthew Hale is and where actually it was because he's

been dead longer than America has been a thing.

Matthew Hale arrived bloody and screaming out of a woman's vagina on November 1st, 1609

in Gloucestershire, England.

And of course she had been an abortion.

Yeah.

Well you're going to hear that.

This is once again, this is another one of those people that why he wants to make it

illegal because his parents were full of regret.

This is another one of these figures that will be, that will be complicated.

I'm so sad.

So um, so we're going by basically this guy died in the late 16 hundreds and this biography

was just an absolute blow job written only about five years after he died by this fawning

admirer quote, he was descended rather from a good than a noble family and yet what was

wanting in the insignificant titles of high birth and noble blood was more than made up

in the true worth of his ancestors.

So in other words, he, his family was nouveau riche, not blue blooded.

He would have no nobility, but money.

His grandfather, Robert Hale had made quite the name for himself in the garment business

and had built up a fortune of more than 10,000 pounds and like I kind of wanted to try to

figure out what that would be in today money somewhere in the millions of dollars.

Like not like billionaire money, but still nice, really well set up.

You know, you're comfortable.

You're in the rich club.

So that was divided up between his five children and one of them also named Robert Hale.

So Robert Hale, the, the, the guy who made all the money, the grandfather, and then Robert

Hale, the father.

Young Bob did not enter the family business of making clothes, but instead turned to the

legal profession.

And Bob was also a devout Christian who amazingly enough attempted to practice what he preached.

So ultimately, you know, this'll, this is a good strike in this guy Bob's favor.

He decided he could not in good conscience remain a barrister because, and this is going

to shock you, standard practice of law involved lies and deception.

Yeah.

Like, you know, lawyers lying.

Like they do now.

Yeah.

Specifically what he wrote about that bothered him was a practice called giving color in

pleadings.

And basically that was about property stuff, inheritance, and it was like rich assholes

could basically petition a judge over matters of law without needing to worry about pesky

facts.

And he'd say, well, I am Lord so-and-so and I have this claim, this property, which makes

my word better than some asshole.

And so regardless of the facts, the judge is supposed to rule in the Lord's favor.

And in Bob Hale felt like, well, no, the facts should always matter.

The truth actually is important and that's kind of bullshit.

He had some money, but he wasn't, he wasn't a Lord.

So you can sort of see how he felt about that.

Now how big a deal this really was is kind of up to debate because he was able to live

off of his and his wife's inherited income quite comfortably.

It wasn't like quitting his job was that big of a burden on him.

And also he wrote in his will that his son should follow in his legal footsteps.

So if you really be hated being a lawyer is that much, why, yeah, why, why do you want

nepotism?

And also when you understand how young he died too, so this is what he thought about

when his kid was like born.

Yeah.

I want him to be a lawyer.

Yeah.

So Robert Hale Jr. was known for his Christian charity as it seems he really took Jesus's

instruction to heart about caring for the poor.

So he was known, like had a reputation for being more generous than his neighbors by

like an order of magnitude and he also refused benefits from his local parish so those alms

could be given instead of the people who actually needed them.

So this guy seemed pretty solid in terms of like wanting to use his money and privilege

to help some people.

We don't know much about her other than she was from a wealthy and established family

that came over to England with William the Conqueror, but she died when little Matt was

only three years old and then his father died only two years later.

So Matthew Hale was an orphan at age five and his dad literally had already provisioned

for him at this point.

Yeah, this kid should be a lawyer even though I quit because it was immoral.

So it's kind of weird and it, but weirdly enough sets up the entire rest of this guy's

story you're about to hear.

So Matthew Hale's mother was Joanna Points.

We don't know much about her other than she was from a wealthy and established family

that came over to England with William the Conqueror, but she died when little Matt was

only three years old.

His father died only two years later, making Matthew, who was an only child, was an orphan

at age five.

Okay, but wealthy.

Yeah.

Very wealthy.

Well some, you know, you definitely got some money.

Okay.

Now if Bob Hale had kept working as a hoity-toity lawyer, had been a little less generous to

the local poor, Matt might have been set up for life as like a trust fund kid.

But much of the family fortune was gone, leaving only a hundred pounds per year minus 20 pounds

per year to be given to the poor of their local district in Gloucestershire.

Okay.

So you can't exactly convert this, but the best estimate I could find, that'd be about

somewhere around like 20 grand a year in terms of like what his support would be.

Okay, so it's like you have a little bit of income, but you still need to be a lawyer.

Right.

You still need, you would need a job in order to like be well set up.

You know who else needs a job?

Me.

We all do.

But yeah, we know what time it is.

Oh, this is the part where we like get advertisements.

Yay.

Okay.

And now we're going to sell you stuff.

And we're back.

And we're back and we're talking about Matthew Hale, a little orphan, getting roughly about

20 grand a year at five years old for his care and support.

Now apparently the Hale side of the family was not particularly interested in little

orphan Matty because two, only two relatives from his mother's side fought over custody.

And ultimately it was a cousin named Anthony Kingsgett that took over charge of a little

boy and saw it was education as laid out by dead Bob.

Okay.

So I think the next sentence, dead, dead Bob, dead, dead Bob.

So we got dead Robert, grandfather, dead Robert, father, and now Matthew is starting off.

So I think this next sentence from his biography really explains who Matthew Hale was and how

he saw the world.

This is again from that fawning biography written five years after he died quote, great

care was taken to his education and his guardian intended to breed him to be a divine and being

inclined to the way of those then called Puritans put him to some schools that were taught by

those of that party and into the 17th year of his age, sent him to Magdalen hall in Oxford

where Obadiah Sedgwick was his tutor, unquote.

That's just, okay.

So what the author is saying is that Matt's cousin, stepfather intended for the kid to

become a Puritan preacher.

That was a, he didn't, he didn't go forward with things like, no, I'm going to raise you

to be the most uptight religious guy in the world.

Oh, oh, this is where witch trials come in.

I see now.

And uh, when Matt was 17 he was shipped off to Oxford to be taught by this guy named Obadiah

Sedgwick, who is not in fact an instructor at Hogwarts.

Uh, he actually was a very influential, a Puritan preacher of the day.

So like imagine the dude with the biggest tightest buckle on his hat.

Well, you know, they, it's, they have to keep their thoughts buckled up as well as their

pants and their shoes.

What would Obadiah Sedgwick have taught at Hogwarts?

Oh, God.

Transphobia.

I'm never moving right along.

Um, so Matt's, so Matt's entire early life was religious education focused on piety,

faith, obedience, chastity, and other things that are lame and not very fun.

Don't touch yourself, children.

And you know what?

I don't think it was very good for him.

Probably not.

So being pent up all your life really makes you just kind of a terrible person.

I mean, as you know, the temptations of our Lord Satan lurk around every corner and something

tried to lure our young hero off the pure and righteous path.

Can you guess what dark force was, uh, it was coming for his soul?

A vagina?

No, no, no, no.

He does.

Now here's one thing I will say, I'm breaking out of my, my script for a second because

his biographer doesn't even really mention it.

It's not important.

Matthew Hale was married twice and has like 10 children by his first wife.

I think he was pretty much too old to be making babies by the time he got his remarried later.

But he had 10 kids.

He was married, he gets married sometime as an adult in this story, but his biographer

basically didn't mention it.

It's only other sources that revealed that.

So you won't hear me talk about her because he certainly didn't care enough.

The biographer didn't think she was relevant or his children are relevant to his story

at all.

So he does get married at some point, but once again, this is all about duty and being

a good Christian and all that.

And I'm sure he had sex under the Christmas tree once a year or whatever, I don't know.

But that's no, not a vagina, the theater.

Oh God.

So as a teenage boy suddenly exposed to popular entertainment, young Matthew got so into seeing

plays and hanging out with actors that he started skipping class and almost flunked

out.

I mean, going to the theaters, right?

Yeah.

I mean, it really would be like a guy who like goes to the movies all the time these

days and gets really, really into it.

But then when he reached the precipice of screwing up his education, he suddenly like,

wait a second.

He decided that the theater was not only a complete waste of his valuable time and it

filled his head with quote images of things that they were at best unprofitable, if not

hurtful to him, unquote.

So he already knew he was going to be planning to move to London after he gets out of Oxford,

a city filled with evil theaters and plays.

So he knew that in order to just set his life straight, he had to make a vow that he would

never see a play again for the rest of his life.

And he didn't.

He's 17.

Okay, whatever loser, whatever loser.

And you're going to see this theme in his life story, you see this recurring thing where

it's like he does something that he decides is a bad idea or a sin and then he overcorrects

as hard as you possibly can.

So his other interests as a young man were wearing the finest clothes and participating

in gentleman sports such as fencing and shooting.

And of course, you know, his grandfather was a famous clothes dude, so it makes sense.

He is wearing the finest threads and he's got the money to have a decent outfit.

The biography tells us that Matt was so good with a sword that he was routinely beating

his instructors.

He tells a weird story about one fencing teacher who rented a house that Matt owned.

So yeah, it seems like he's doing okay.

Like he literally was renting a house out to one of these guys teaching him how to use

a sword.

And the teacher swore, he's like, he's like, Matthew, you are better than me.

He's like, the student is now better than the master, nothing more I can teach you.

And according to the story, Matt felt like the guy was just flattering him.

So Matt offered to give his teacher the house he lived in if the guy could even land a single

blow in his head.

So in other words, it's like, okay, you, and he's like, you rent this house from me and

you're telling me that I'm better than you.

So let's put that to the test, if you can do this.

And so according to the story, he knew that the teacher was just talking some shit.

And so this is the way the quote goes from the biography, quote, so after a little engagement,

his master being really superior to him, hit him on the head and he performed his promise

for he gave him the house freely and was not unwilling at that rate to learn so early to

distinguish flattery from plain and simple truth, unquote.

So I love how this story is presented as if Hale was just being humble, when I bet you

dollars to donuts, it went more like this.

He's like, forsooth, verily, I am so keen with the blade that if thou can strike me

even once, I shall give thy bitch ass a house.

So it's like, he thought he was hot shit, he was like, I'll bet you this house you can't

do.

And then this guy just owns him.

So instead he reframes it, he's like, this was a lesson in humility, you know, that I

crafted myself, it was all according to plan.

I wanted to give away this house.

It's like, I know I'm detecting bullshit from 400 years ago.

Yeah, it's like, sorry buddy, good luck selling that story.

Anyway, the biography goes on to tell us that Hale was so devoted to his tutor Sedgwick

and his hatred of Catholics that he signed up to go fight in the low countries for the

Prince of Orange's army, aka King Billy, the man who would one day co-rule England, Scotland

and Ireland with his wife Mary after overthrowing the Catholic King James II.

So instead of, but instead of going off to die as a foot soldier in the Game of Thrones,

he got sued by some guy named Sir William Whitmore for a portion of his estate.

So suddenly it's like, he was literally about ready to just put a spear in my hand.

I'm going to, I'm getting ready to go want to kill some Catholics.

The biographer says that his cousin's stepfather was not up to the challenge of dealing with

this.

So Matt set aside his plans and went to London to settle the matter.

From there, some guy named Glanville helped fulfill the wish that was in his father's

will and he talked Matt into giving up his dreams of glory in battle in the name of Protestant

Jesus and instead to study to become an attorney.

Setting us up for the rest of this, this would have just been better for him to go die in

the war. He could have just kind of fucking piked to the chest, you know, shot with an

English longbow.

See I'm typically against wars, but I would have been real grateful for this guy not to

be around.

So on November 8, 1629, barely 20 years old, Matt was admitted to the Lincoln's Inn.

So in 17th century, there were four ends of court in London, sort of like the fancy law

schools of their day, places for legal education and training for people entering the profession,

and admittance to Lincoln's Inn was quite the feather in his cap.

He threw himself into his studies and according to his biographer, worked at it for 16 hours

a day.

Sounds fun.

The dude had no life.

During this time, he rejected his fancy pants clothes and adopted a simple Puritan style

of dress that he would maintain for the rest of his life.

Oh, he sounds real fun.

Now, during this time, there was also some sad accident with a friend involving alcohol

and the biography was not clear exactly what happened.

But it was bad enough where Matt made a vow, once again, to never drink for the rest of

his life.

And according to everyone, stuck to his guns even when there was intense social pressure.

So already not going to the theater, dressing down, never drinking.

So he's drab and he sucks and he's lame.

Yeah.

He decided his life would focus entirely on his faith and the law.

So for 36 years, he never missed a single church service on Sunday.

Oh yeah, I'm sure.

So Matt was so uptight, he created a daily schedule to organize his time.

Now I think mindfulness and using your time with intention is a good thing, broadly speaking,

but just listen.

This is just the morning portion.

Okay.

Oh goody.

Hundreds of years later, we get to know how this guy organized his day.

Roman numeral one, to lift up the heart to God and thankfulness for renewing my life.

Roman numeral two, to renew my covenant with God in Christ.

One, by renewed acts of faith, receiving Christ and rejoicing in the height of that relation.

Two, resolution of being one of his people, doing him allegiance.

Roman numeral three, adoration and prayer.

Roman numeral four, setting a watch over my own infirmities and passions, over the snares

laid our way.

And then there's our Latin phrase.

It's something like Perimus Licitus or something.

And this is his day planner?

This is his day planner and that's just the morning.

And so literally the last little phrase, that little Latin bit, it just basically means

death for a good cause.

So literally by the time you've had breakfast, you should be thinking about dying well in

the name of the Lord.

How if I just want to drink coffee, dude?

He goes on to make sure his day job is in alignment with God's will and that he maintains

his prayer and spiritual connection throughout the day, that he should only enjoy meat and

drink in moderation.

You already know that.

He already doesn't drink alcohol.

So when he says that, he's literally meaning like, just don't eat or drink too much.

You know, just, just what you need.

He had a rule of no games, quote, if given to covetness or passion, unquote.

In other words, I think any fun.

Okay, so fun's illegal.

Fun is just off the menu and he had reminders for himself if he was alone, quote, Roman

numeral one, be aware of wandering and vainful lustful thoughts, fly from myself rather than

entertain these.

Don't touch thyself.

Don't touch not thine dick.

To let thy solitary thoughts be profitable, view the evidences of thy salvation, the state

of thy soul, the coming of Christ, thy own mortality.

It will make thee humble and watchful, unquote.

Yeah.

Just don't touch your dick.

Don't touch your dick.

Don't touch your dick.

Don't think about boobs.

If having company over, he orders himself, once again, this little plan to use God's

name reverently and to always leave a good example and to receive good from them if more

knowing.

And he finally ends the evening by reviewing his accomplishments and begging forgiveness

from the Lord if he fell short and resolved to do better under the mercy of the Lord,

our God, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Would you ever invite this guy to a party?

God no.

I don't, I don't think you should let that guy out of the house.

He seems dangerous.

Yeah, it's like, it's a little unhinged, but you know.

So much so.

So because of all this hard work.

This made me think feelings.

I must make it stop.

Because of all this hard work and faithful living, Matt got the attention of William

Noy, who was the attorney general of England at the time.

Apparently our hero was so up this guy's ass that Matt gained the nickname Young Noy.

Just for the record, I absolutely refuse to accept the word hero.

Just just letting you know now.

Every time you say it, I'm in silent protest.

I'm trying to get you on Matthew Hale's side here.

All right.

Fuck that guy.

So so he's now Young Noy, the little, the little kiss ass with the attorney general.

Though Hale would go on to surpass even this latest mentor, but he had a hilarious problem

that created a temporary speed bump in his career.

So you might've already noticed this pattern we talked about, about how he like just makes

a decision that something was a sin or he was doing something wrong and then he just

goes hard in the opposite direction.

Like I'm never going to see a play again, you'll never get to drink again.

I'm never going to touch a boob again until the next time I touch a boob.

Right.

Or at least think about a boob or an ankle or whatever.

So you know, no, he's not drinking, he's not going to plays anymore.

And for a while, you know, he dressed in fancy clothes and then he made the decision, no,

that's not the Puritan way.

You're supposed to be simple and humble and all that.

You're supposed to suck.

So he looked like a fucking slob for the next few years.

So much so that when a press gang was rounding up a peasant conscripts for his majesty's

army, Matt got swept up with the rest, with all the peasants and he was almost sent off

to war for the second time, which would this time be fighting for the Catholic King.

Gross.

No, that's hilarious though.

It's like he literally almost got forced to fight for the army he wanted to fight against

before just because he was a fucking slob.

Looked like shit.

Like a pig pen from the Peanuts cartoons, flies following around and kicking dust everywhere

he went.

But finally someone recognized him as a lawyer working for the attorney general and they

let him go.

So Matt decided maybe I should clean myself up a little bit, you know, nothing to, not

to go back to full fancy pants, but just middle of the road, just will be a simple professional.

And that's kind of the way he set himself up.

So that wouldn't happen to him again.

So at least he didn't like look like ass.

Yeah, you can't look like a bum dude.

Yeah.

So we are told that young Hale was purchasing cloth from a drapery, so that's where you'd

purchase the whole like bolts of cloth and then Taylor would, or a cutter would then

cut the suits.

Didn't they have cloth?

That wasn't a thing.

Yeah.

So Hale was purchasing cloth for you to get suits and stuff made.

And the dude offered to give Hale the cloth and now at no cost, if you'd promised to give

him a hundred pounds when Matt became Lord Chief Justice, the highest office in the land.

But Matt refused a deal he felt was not honest.

And of course later this guy got to curse under his breath when in fact Matt absolutely

did become Lord Chief Justice.

In the meantime, he did nothing but study and pray and be a complete tight ass.

Good times.

He remained at the hall and continued to study even during official vacation.

So this is like at Hogwarts when all the other kids went home for Christmas.

He's Hermione sitting there.

Staying there and working and studying when everybody else is having fun.

He's just got no life, no interest because you might, you might touch your dick if you've

ever stopped for even just a second.

He organized collections of books he read with extensive notes, compiling them into

kind of a cliff notes or Hale's notes version that ended up getting borrowed by a judge

of the King's bench.

He was really impressed.

He was like, wow, this, this nerd really made a nice little reference guide for some of

this law.

Now Matt had not yet passed the bar, but he'd already written a legal work recommended by

a royally appointed judge.

So this guy has just got nerd ass kissing down to a science and he's like, you know,

in his early twenties.

Gross.

Constantly on the lookout for older successful mentors, Matt found an expert in legal history

in a guy named John Selden who introduced him to a wider knowledge and a study of the

legal system in ancient Rome, which our boy liked very, very much.

And he regretted that Roman law wasn't much studied in his country.

He and Selden became so close that Matt was named one of the four executors of his estate

and Matt apparently went into, sorry, and Matt apparently went on to become well versed

in other subjects, including arithmetics, algebra, philosophy, physics, anatomy, surgery,

ancient history and chronology.

All that sounds like so much fun, but you know what's more fun?

What?

Ads.

Oh shit.

We're going to go to ads?

These are ads.

And we're back.

We're back.

And Matt is being a complete dork.

He's been a complete dork this whole time.

Yeah.

Well now he studied Jewish law in the Old Testament despite being absolutely lousy at

the languages they were written in and making the study of divinity chief to all others.

He got up early in the morning and was never idle.

After dining, he would read or study, not wanting to waste a single moment with simple

pleasure or relaxation.

So I mean, it's the most Puritan thing ever.

You just got to work and pray and work and pray and never touch your dick and never touch

your dick until you die one day.

So remember how earlier Matt was ready to die to sit a Protestant king on the throne?

Well, when the English civil war broke out, our boy here decided to keep his head down

and shut the fuck up.

He refused any public involvement or to even talk about the news with anybody.

He was like, we don't talk.

He made sure he was generous to people having a hard time and he was quietly working for

people in the current king's employees.

So it's like still taking some of that Catholic king money.

He just grumbles about it.

Now Matt rode things out this way until Oliver Cromwell was in charge and he wanted to appoint

our hero to the bench and Matt kind of hemmed and hawed, but ultimately accepted the appointment,

being careful to never recognize the authority of the usurper.

Now at 43 years old, Judge Hale oversaw a murder trial of a townsman who died in a fight

after the guy refused to give up his gun to the soldier stationed nearby.

So basically like this soldier is walking through town, sees a local with a gun and

demands it.

They get into a fight and the soldier kills the local.

Matt ignored the defense of the commander of the garrison and had the soldier executed

quickly so that the strings couldn't be pulled for this guy.

He's like, no, fuck that guy.

Fuck that guy.

You're good now.

You're kicking on the end of a rope, buddy.

Yeah.

I wouldn't have done that.

No, he believed in swift justice and, uh, is actually one of his legal precepts.

I may even get into it later, but it's basically the idea that he felt like crimes of blood

needed to be resolved quickly and like with swift, harsh punishments, but crimes of words

or property could be more reason, you know, and that's actually, you know, not, yeah,

except for, I don't believe in capital punishment either, but you know, in this case under this

world that seemed like the best thing to do was fuck that guy.

I guess, um, later on the judicial circuit, Matt got pissed when a local sheriff abused

his authority to fuck with the jury of an important trial.

So this guy's, this sheriff's doing a little jury tampering.

Matt finds out about it and he's like, I refuse to try this case at all.

Cromwell was pissed when he found out about this and said that Hale was not fit to be

a judge.

Matt was quoted as saying, that is very true.

See, as a devout Royalist, Hale tried to split his hairs to do his job, but he ultimately

felt he could not, he could not have someone executed by the state without the authority

of a true king.

So because in his mind, all the authority came from the king and the king's authority

came from God.

So you can't like, you can't kill someone, this is just some dude sitting on the throne.

No, God did not divinely appoint Cromwell to be sitting on the throne.

So this made a number of very important people unhappy with him, but Matt just kept on plodding

along and practicing law without taking hard sides.

He didn't want to get himself in trouble.

He wanted to make money from, money came from whoever was sitting there, you know, on the,

you know, in the big chair.

So in the middle, so now he's middle aged and Matt was chosen for parliament during

a time when there were no, there was no House of Lords.

So he's going to the House of Commons and there were two primary parties struggling

for dominance at the time.

So one was called the Enthusiasts and these are the people who want to just tear down

the existing system of England and set up the Kingdom of Christ.

The other was the pro-Cromwell party, and these are usually like the merchant class,

these people like, this disruption of the old society is a really great way for all

of us to get rich and powerful.

Matthew took neither side, but instead decided to kind of mitigate the damage of the most

extreme members of both sides.

He's like, let's just keep this thing together until a king gets back.

Let's not fuck everything up.

So apparently one of the things he fought against, there was a plan.

There's like, Hey, let's just go to the tower, into the tower of London and burn all of the

records.

Let's just like wipe the slate clean.

Let's just, let's just, we don't want, there's a lot of ugly stuff in English history and

let's just burn it all.

And Matt was saying, Oh, that's a terrible idea.

Yeah.

You can't just erase history.

He's like, how about we don't do that?

And it's like for all of his faults and Matthew's very devoted to history and precedent and

the things that came before.

So he continued to administer justice under Cromwell, but when the guy finally died, Matt

refused to publicly mourn the protector of England to like, they sent him like official

mourning robes and here's the instructions of what you're supposed to do to probably

mourn the protector.

It's like, Nope, fuck that.

He didn't want to do it.

Nor did he accept a commission from Cromwell's son, Richard, because instead he's like, wait

the fuck a second.

Cromwell was already just sitting there and now you're saying there's inherited throne.

He's not royalty.

That's not how this works.

It's like that's false nepotism.

Yeah.

That's very different from these made up families, trees that are royal, you know, divinely appointed.

He instead lived as a private citizen during at this time, the army removed Richard Cromwell

from power until Matt's wishes were granted when Charles the second was called back from

exile and proclaimed the lawful Monarch.

Finally our boy had the Protestant King he'd always hoped to serve.

So in short order, Matt was elected back to parliament and according to the biography,

he wasn't even running.

Like he's just all of his neighbors so awesome that they appointed him and he was amazing.

And very quickly, Charles made appointed him Knight of the Shire from the County of Gloucestershire.

That all sounds very Harvard.

So he's officially Sir Matthew Hale at this point now he's in mid forties and he used

this position to help craft and pass the act of indemnity, which essentially pardon and

forgave all the Cromwell supporters so that the reconstruction period following the English

Civil War would be productive and not focused on vengeance.

So he's like, let's not just get there.

Let's not, you know, tear into each other and have it all about person prosecuting all

of the people who supported the usurper.

Let's just move on as a nation.

Let's heal.

Matt was made Lord Chief Baron and served for 11 years and gained a solid reputation

for justice and exactness in his trials.

Now put a pin in that in your brain because this period where he's Lord Chief Baron for

11 years is where a trial we're going to cover in the second episode takes place.

Oh goody.

Before we get there, let's, we're just going to go through his general biography before

we move on to specific areas of law he ruled on.

So you might remember a thing that happened in London in 1666, you know, when somebody

like knocked over a lantern or put out a cigar in the wrong file and 13,000 homes, 87 churches,

the Royal Exchange and a bunch of other buildings burned to the damn ground, the great fire

of London.

So Matt was one of the main judges who resolved disputes between tenants and landlords in

the aftermath of that nightmare.

And he also laid out important rules for the rebuilding process for the years that followed.

So like, here is how you resolve these disputes between a tenant and a landlord.

And he also used his skills in both math and architecture to literally define like, you

know, I have no idea exactly how, but he wrote down all these rules to help people make these

determinations in a consistent way because that's, that's kind of like his life's goal

was to make the law consistent because a lot of it, common law was just sort of like, oh,

that's just what we know it is.

He's one of these guys who's like, no, we got to write this shit down so that everybody

rules aren't the same.

So these precedents are real.

And that's one of the reasons why he's so revered in legal circles is he's like the

pioneer of writing shit down, which is fine and standardizing it.

That part's fine.

It's fine.

So he's still lame, but it's fine.

It's fine.

Even though it's not fine that his shit has anything to do with our lives now.

But the idea of writing out the law seems to make sense to me.

So Matthew wrote up personal rules for how he'd rule, for how he'd rule as a judge much

as he wrote out the rules for how he'd spend his day because he's big on like writing his

own schedule and rules for himself.

An emphasis on receiving strength and direction from God, not to be swayed by pity for the

poor or show favoritism to the rich.

He wrote that matters of blood should be dealt with severely, but show moderation and matters

of mere words, like I mentioned before.

So that he should refuse private solicitations and make sure his servants never interfere

in business or take money.

More on that in the story later.

And also that he should take only short meals and not eat too much when attending to business.

As he settled in the later life, Matt became increasingly uncompromising as opposed to

how chill he was before.

So in one case, a gentleman sent the gift of a freshly killed buck for his dinner table.

But when our Lord Chief Baron found out who this guy was who sent him this deer and it

was about, it was from a related to a case he was going to be trying, he refused to try

the case until he paid for the venison.

He's like, no, I do not accept gifts and bribes.

Yeah, this is a bribe.

Good day, sir.

What kind of judge do you think I am?

This is a meat bribe.

And so literally the guy's like, no, no, no, I only give away the stuff from my, my forest.

I do not sell it.

I am a gentleman.

They fought over it.

But finally, but Matt's like, no, fuck you.

I'm not trying your case until I paid you fair market price for this venison because

we already ate it.

And it was excellent.

He once refused to sign the certificate of a dude who'd been fired for some offense and

instead gave the guy a sack of money and sent him on his way without the pink slip.

Okay.

That seems pretty cool.

That's nice.

He tried to follow his father's example and he was generous to the less fortunate.

You're making donations to the poor and all that and all.

That's fine.

Yep.

And Matt became obsessed over religious disputes within Protestant sex and wish there were

more laws that could let him publish offenders, AKA Catholics, gross.

He publicly declared for the church of England.

Of course he did.

So and as obsessed as he was for his entire life, he spent a great deal of his energy

writing essays and poems about religious subjects, arguing against atheism and impiety working

for seven years before sending this big volume to the Bishop of Chester.

It's like a bunch of religious nonsense that tries to try to be science and philosophy.

It describes the great flood and speculates what the antediluvian world may have been like.

And then on May 18th, 1671, when our hero, survey says, nah, he was 61 years old.

Sir Matthew Hale was promoted to Lord Chief Justice of England immediately after the last

one croaked.

So this is like the highest appointed, the highest royally appointed judge position in

the land.

It's like the attorney general of the king.

Okay.

So it's a big deal.

Big deal because in his early sixties, so his final years of service were lauded by

the court and the people.

And it was during this time he wrote his great work, Historia Placitorum Conorae.

That's the pretentious Latin or the history of the pleas of the crown in our shared native

language.

This is the text that would be referred to and cited by lawyers and judges for the next

350 years, even in completely different countries like ours.

And also recently India made some awful rulings on their highest court related to women's

rights.

Of course they did.

Citing this boy, Matthew Hale.

Oh my goodness.

So we know where he's buried.

I'd like to spit on him.

Yeah.

Okay.

We can go.

Okay.

Can we take a chainsaw trip to spit on the grave of this asshole?

So several years into his appointment, Matt's health took a sharp turn for the worse, swelling

in his abdomen and shortness of breath.

He decided he was done and he fought to quit despite the objections from his local town

and the king, but eventually his resignation was accepted.

By the time he officially retired, Matt had to be carried around by servants.

He was unable to walk, he could barely breathe, and he seemed to regret that he'd worked so

hard.

He didn't set aside any time to, to rest and reflect at the end of his life.

He died not long into retirement.

The official cause was named dropsy, which you know, basically those dropsy dead dropsy

was like old timey for edema, just like swelling of the tissues.

So like for my wife who works in- So did he, did he die slowly and painfully?

Yeah, it was bad.

Not good.

He died choking.

Oh good.

Choking on his own fluids.

Good.

I hope some of it was ambiotic.

After his death, he left us a letter.

Now it's boring, so I'm not going to read it to you, but here's the bullet point version

of what he had to say.

He considers his profession as a lawyer and judge and a duty bound by Providence of almighty

God and that such work is important for civil society, but he also declares it a huge time

sink and pain in the ass and in fact was the least beneficial to himself above all others.

Reflecting back, he thinks it's that such position should only be served for a short

period of time in the prime of life to save the rest for religious observation, reflection

and prayer.

Yeah, take that Alito, you fucking old bastard.

Thinking on the biblical story of Martha and Mary, he feels Mary chose the better part.

By focusing on only one necessary thing instead of taking on many challenges.

So in other words, as he lay dying, Sir Matthew Hale wishes he'd spent less time working and

more time praying.

He was like the religious tight ass until he died choking on his own lungs.

Oh, well I like the fact that he, you know, was choking on his own lungs, but that's,

that's my favorite part of the story so far, fuck this guy.

So his sycophantic biographer, and you want to say that he's complicated, no, I don't

think he's complicated.

I just think he sucks.

Fair enough.

Donate to the poor.

That's the very least you could do.

You fucking piece of shit.

And he may seem to make some fair rulings and was generous in some ways, like I said,

you know, every time-

And again, I guess for a 300 year old dead asshole, it's fine.

Like if you graded him on the curve, he seemed okay for his day.

We just still shouldn't be listening to the fucking shit he has to say 300 years later,

cause fuck you.

Yeah.

So his sycophantic biographer, so the guy who's wrote the biography I've been reading

from this whole time, his name was Gilbert Burnett.

He could only regret that Hale's strict modesty prevented Burnett from placing this following

inscription on Matt's tombstone.

This is what he wanted to write, but wasn't allowed to.

That he was one of the greatest patterns this age has afforded, whether in his private deportment

as a Christian or in his public employments, either at the bar or on the bench, unquote.

He was great.

So we talked about his life.

And now that we know a bit about who this guy was, you might imagine that his legal

opinions regarding rape weren't great.

Oh yeah, I can imagine, especially if you were married, cause then you're just property

anyway.

Yeah.

So this is, so, so once again, we're going to go ahead and we're going to now know we've

done his biography.

You need to get a sense of who this guy was.

We're going to talk about his legal, all the major areas of how his legal opinions related

to women have affected us to this very day.

Starting with sexual assault and rape.

I wish I could say his opinions only affected women back in his day in his own country.

But to start with the basics, let's start, okay, so it is great work the one we talked

about, Historia Placitorum Canore.

Hale defines the crime of rape under the English common law thusly, quote, rape is the carnal

knowledge of any woman above the age of 10 years against her will and of a woman child

under the age of 10 years with or against her will, unquote.

So what did you pick out of that little paragraph right there?

Well, I mean, you're not supposed to take women against their will and you're especially

not allowed to touch the children.

Yeah, but he defined the age of consent as 10 years old.

Which is ridiculous.

I mean, even for, even for then it sounds a little young.

To his credit, if you're going to, if you are going to give him any, later in the same

book, he goes on to define the age of consent as 12, not 10, and recommends that the law,

the wording of the law be changed to be automatically raped if the girl is 11 or under.

So that's, you know, an improvement.

No, no, that's not how any of this works.

He goes on to some detail about the legal difference between rape or buggery, which

means penetration versus carnal knowledge, which is other kinds of sexual assault that

does involve penetration.

He talks about different situations in which rape can be prosecuted and then drops this

little doozy, quote, but the husband cannot be guilty of a rape committed by himself upon

his lawful wife, for by their mutual matrimonial consent and contract, the wife hath given

up of herself in this kind unto her husband, which she cannot retract, unquote.

Yeah.

And now granted, she wasn't even allowed to pick her own husband.

You know, her parents did that for her.

Yeah.

90% of the time.

Very clearly stated, very clearly raped by a husband.

Yeah.

Unfortunately those views were pretty much in line with the standard beliefs of the time.

So it wasn't like this was, this was once again, this was him reflecting common law

that was already out there.

And to be fair, he does say that it's not, that, um, does not write that it's okay for

a husband to quote prostitute her to a rape, unquote, and if a dude were to try that shit,

the husband would also be guilty of the crime and end up dangling from Hale's rope because

for all, for the, all of the awful things about this, he also believed that a rape was

a serious crime that should be punishable by death.

He also says the law does not make a forced or coerced marriage a legitimate rape.

So he's saying, he's saying that such a marriage can be dissolved by a declaratory sentence

in a Christian court that would void the marriage and make the man eligible for prosecution

as if the marriage had never been.

So in other words, he's saying like if a woman's like abducted or threatened in some way and

forced into this situation, then the guy rapes her and he's like, well, no, that's my wife.

So that's not a thing.

They're like, no, no, no, the marriage was not, we're going to null your marriage and

then you're going to hang.

Now so that, let's say of course that kind of forced marriage was like the extreme kind

has nothing to do with the usual kind of a father essentially selling his daughter off

his property and her having no choice in who she married.

And that's, you know, that's perfectly legal.

That was normal.

That's legit.

He was talking about it like an actual, because there was, there was a legitimate case that

was cited in the book where some important woman had gotten abducted, forced to marry,

raped by her abductor, and then there was a literal act of parliament to undo the marriage

in order so that then that guy could be executed for this crime.

And so Hale made the point, he's like, you don't even have to do an act of parliament.

We can just, just literally any Christian court can annul a marriage in those circumstances.

But once again, if you're married, you know, if you're normally married, a husband can

violently rape his wife and that's just fine.

That's fine.

Yeah, I understand.

I don't like it, but I understand.

So in another section, Hale describes a scenario in which a wife voluntarily steals her husband's

stuff and runs off with another man.

He explains that there is no felony from either party here, however, there is the issue of

the property stolen, quote, but without question, if the wife were actually ravished and the

goods taken, this action lies for the husband and he shall recover damages for the rape

as well as the goods that the wife were dead or divorced after the rape, unquote.

So in other words, this was a property crime and the wife was part of the stolen goods

that were messed with.

Oh, you, you've touched my stuff.

You violated my stuff.

Part of that stuff would be Mrs. So-and-so it's great.

Oh yeah.

You know what else is great?

Great.

Advertisements.

You mean like these ones we're about to listen to now?

Yep.

These ads.

Okay, we're back.

Oh boy.

Having fun talking about rape and sexual assault and Sir Matthew Hale.

Oh yeah.

All of this sucks.

All right, so here's an interesting point.

I'm having so much fun now.

Here's another, I'm going to throw another name at you that might ring a bell, but I

won't be surprised if you don't instantly recognize it.

Uh, it's, the name is Todd Aiken.

It's okay.

So it's not surprising.

He is a, he was, he's dead now.

He was a former former member of the House of Representatives from the great state of

Missouri.

Back in 2012 he made some headlines because he was a super pro-life dude and he wanted,

he was voicing his, his opposition to abortion even in the most extreme cases.

For example, rape victims, cases of rape and incest.

Aiken was quoted as saying, quote, if it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways

to try and shut that whole thing down.

Unquote.

Remember that one now?

That whole legitimate rape quote.

So in other words, he's saying, he's saying this Aiken is saying if the, if it's pregnant,

it wasn't a rape if the woman got pregnant because, because that's apparently how biology

works.

Oh yeah.

Cause we can just force a baby away.

Well guess what?

Matthew Hale disagrees with Aiken.

Well that's, that's nice at least.

He uses a Latin phrase I'm not even going to try to pronounce, but it translates into

quote, for a woman can become pregnant even if she has been oppressed with force.

Unquote.

Because duh, of course, that's how human biology works.

That's how fucking sperm works yo.

And it's like, it's worse, it's terrible when the, the 350 year old terrible person has

a more reasonable thing than the dude from Missouri 10 years ago.

Yeah, I mean.

But Todd Aiken, we can at least say this about him.

He's dead.

Yay.

So when discussing the trial of rape cases, Hale instructs that the victim be allowed

to give testimony and be considered a competent witness, but the jury must decide how credible

she is based on the circumstances.

He then gives an example.

First example is a woman of good reputation who immediately reports the crime and shows

physical signs of injury and then compares her to a woman who did not immediately scream

rape, does not appear to be injured, doesn't seem like anything was wrong, came up later,

she should probably be disbelieved.

Yeah, cause we always love to come forward and you know, and women were so, we're dealt

with so fairly.

There's only one version of rape and that is some guy jumping up with a knife and beating

you up and violently assaulting you.

There's not threats, there's not coercion, there's not while you're asleep or, or you

know, under the influence.

And some of those things are things, there's only one way and you know, and you and you

being afraid or ashamed or unsure or whatever your reasons are, if you don't immediately

do the right things, then no one should believe you, right?

According to Hale.

Yeah, that sucks.

Obviously I don't believe any of the things I just said.

So he might as well have written quote, well, this is not a real quote, he might as well

have written and find out what the haul it was wearing and judge her thusly.

I mean, that's just sort of like the gross, you know, judging the victim instead of the

case, the case and the criminal who committed the crime.

So he described one case in which a 63 year old man with health problems was accused of

raping a 14 year old girl.

Judge Hale instructed the jury to consider that the man's ancient years would make it

impossible for him to insult a young girl.

Obviously.

Yeah, cause that's how biology works too.

This is the section of the book that contains one of Hale's most infamous quotes, quote,

it is true that rape is most detestable crime and therefore it ought to be severely and

impartially punished with death, but it must be remembered that it is an accusation easily

made and hard to be proved and harder to be defended against for the party accused though

never so innocent.

Unquote.

So in other words, it's easy to throw out an accusation.

Any woman can just throw out a rape accusation whenever she wants and literally, and we say

ruin a guy's life, like in this case, literally end with him dead.

So he's saying that because of this and because it stirs up people's passions that you should

always lean against just instantly believing a woman just because she said this happened

because there needs to be other, other, uh, gross.

And this is before there's any kind of real physical evidence other than literally has

to be bruising and, and like, you know, they would let like these midwives like check the

woman out physically and stuff like that.

And here's the ugly part where we see how these views trickle down into modern American

life.

One example, marital rape was not outlawed in all 50 states until July 5th, 1993.

And that does not surprise me at all.

It's gross, but it doesn't surprise me.

Literally right after I graduated high school when that was the last state, I forget which

one it was the last holdout.

Probably like Mississippi cause they saw Louisiana.

All right.

And here's, here's a doozy in the Fordham urban law journal, volume four, four, number

two, article 10 from 1976, the title, and it's a long one, it's a law journal, criminal

law, rape cautionary instruction in sex offense trial relating prosecutrix credibility to

the nature of the crime charge is no longer mandatory discretionary uses disapproved.

That was the title.

It discusses the appeal of a convicted rapist in the state of California.

So what were the grounds of this man's appeal?

So he's already convicted.

He's trying to get it overturned and you always have to have a legal reasoning for why the

original ruling was illegitimate.

It's harder to get a case overturned than it is anything else.

So the grounds he was filing for appeal under were this quote, the defendant appealed alleging

error by the trial judge for failing to give the mandatory cautionary instruction that

a charge such as this made against the defendant in this case is one which is easily made and

once made difficult to defend against, even if the person accused is innocent, therefore

the law requires that you examine the testimony of the female person named in the information

with caution.

Unquote.

Does that sound slightly familiar?

That's practically quoting Hale from 350 years before the document goes on quote.

The origin of the cautionary instruction for rape and other sex offenses is attributed

to the 17th century writings of Sir Matthew Hale.

Unquote.

So this was standard practice in our country to instruct juries to warn against the credibility

of victim testimony in a rape case until very recently.

This was literally called the Hale rule.

I, I, okay.

Now I'm happy to say.

This is painful.

The good news, at least with this citation is this was the case where the California

Supreme Court upheld the conviction and rejected the mandatory use of the Hale rule and literally

said, no longer mandatory, in fact, not recommended at all.

But the Fordham journal reminds us that once upon a time, Lord Hale wrote the following.

Once again, from his original big book, Matthew writes, quote, I only mentioned these instances

that we may be the more cautious upon trials of offenses of this nature, wherein the court

and jury may with so much ease be imposed upon with great care and vigilance, the heinousness

of the offense many times transporting the judge and jury with so much indignation that

they are over hastily carried to the conviction of the person accused thereof and by the confident

testimony of sometimes malicious and false witnesses, unquote, in other words, bitches

be lying.

Oh God, the bitches be lying president.

And that's it for part one of our look into Sir Matthew Hale, religious tight ass who

should have zero bearing on the rights of anyone in the 21st fucking century.

Especially in a different country with different rules, with different laws, with different

just literally everything in it from a, from a literal.

You guys didn't even know about germ theory.

Fuck you.

It's a state religion and a king, and that was where all the legal authority derived

from, but we're supposed to care.

But this guy says, so anyway, we'll be back next week to look at how his horrible opinions

affected women for hundreds of years in a couple of other areas.

We'll talk about how he helped get a bunch of women killed over here in the colonies

16 years after he died.

Yay.

And we'll talk about how a certain Supreme Court justice is a real lifeline piece of

shit.

Oh, wow, I could have already told you that, but for now, thank you.

If you're listening to our words and made it all the way to the end of this shit show,