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When the Salem Witch Trials began they referred back to the standards set by famed British jurist Sir Matthew Hale, whose legal rulings were all seen through the lens of his Puritan religion and the belief that all legal authority comes from God through a divinely anointed king. But despite the fact that he sentenced women to die for witchcraft, his legal opinions are cited to this day as the basis for laws that deny rights and agency to women.

In this episode Chambers siblings Jamie and Bambi examine an absurd witch trial that became a best-selling pamphlet before looking at the very serious ramifications Hale's life, rulings, and writings have on people who live centuries later on another continent. But even with that's terrible influence, Justice Samuel Alito had to misrepresent Hale's writings on abortion in the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

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.

name a thing that I shouldn't be angry about right now running people into

people at the grocery store fucking hate it here's the thing that I will confess

now and if this is you listener I'm really sorry this is having me more than

once and say the last year where I'll go into like Kroger or Walmart or

whatever usually it's Kroger and I run in to someone who face lights up and

they're like Jamie and they run over and hug me and I'm I do sort of recognize

them they're familiar in some way they come and talk to me and I bullshit my

way through a conversation how you do and give some vague stuff my family go

through an entire five-minute interaction with multiple hugs they

leave no fucking clue oh I do that all the time and you have to understand it's

really weird because um even though I'm known in the community I can still go

incognito my husband knows everyone we go out of state and they'll be like some

random person who's like see I'm the opposite we do that and it's someone

who recognizes me like oh it's awful my worst thing in the world restaurant in

the middle of nowhere Texas just on the way to somewhere else and so we like

Jamie and she's like you gotta be fucking kidding me yeah and remembering

people for the most part is not my strong suit I'm like hey you well it's

it's you speaking of remembering people you remember who we talked about last

week unfortunately yeah a certain judge named Matt yeah Matt and his his dead

dad Bob oh yeah dead dad Bob now very dead Matt as well here in 2023 so here

we are yeah this is part two of our deep dive into a dead British judge from the

1600s who for some reason as someone we're supposed to give a shit about when

determining rights for human beings in the year 2023 but this is Chainsaw

History welcome to the podcast where we take a jurist who is venerated in

American law schools and give him the same respect a baby gives a diaper I

want to take a shit on him we're gonna be doing some of that so I'm your host

Jamie Chambers and this is my sister Bambi hello we are a weekly comedy

podcast I am NOT a historian just a guy who's been googling obscure Latin

phrases it's like way too much to be healthy at all and I'm a girl who's been

forced to listen to Jamie the entirety of my life so it's kind of almost nice

to have purpose in it because normally it's just me listening to your ranting

and raving just in my kitchen and for no reason now for more ranting and raving

go to chainsawhistory.com where you can check out past episodes you can get

bonus content see bonus articles and extra cool stuff coming your way there's

subscriptions where you can use to directly support what we're doing and if

you we get enough of those we'll be doing more stuff before we get going

again I would once again want to put out a content warning we do usually talk

about rough topics on this show but everyone should know going in we're

gonna be discussing topics including sexual violence and abortion so if

that's not your thing it's cool to skip until next week and we'll have technically

it shouldn't be anyone's thing well yeah but if it's if it or if it's especially

triggering if it's especially a problem for you and it's just not something you

want to hear no problem so if you want to get the entire life story of Sir

Matthew Hale an uptight weirdo who died in regret don't why would you see that

because we need the clicks and the listens you can go back and listen to

part one before catching up with us here but if you don't want to do that

the quick recap is that Matthew Hale was cited more than half a dozen times in

the majority opinion of the United States Supreme Court case last year that

overturned Roe vs. Wade and threw away 50 years of civil rights for half the

population so we looked at this love the life of Sir Matthew Hale this guy who is

cited by Justice Alito and we discovered that as a person he just was an uptight

kind of piece of shit kind of yeah not somebody you wouldn't want to hang out

with this guy he was no fun he was an orphan raised to be a Puritan pastor who

instead pivoted to become the biggest nerd and kiss-ass in law school he was a

workaholic and a preyaholic an absolute weirdo even by the standards of his day

Hale went on to become the chief royally appointed judge in the final years of

his life writing tomes that are cited in American legal cases up to this very day

his influence on our lives is honestly jaw-dropping like I just told like what

we covered before and then he got total horribly and totally sick and told

everyone who could listen that people should retire young so they can just

pray and read the Bible all day so really what he wanted were term limits

yeah for judicial term limits I'm for judicial term limits as a principal

wouldn't have for example it would be in fact the only one of his opinions that I

would say is still relevant or we should give a shit about you might say

that Matthew Hale advocated for you know for not having lifetime Supreme Court

justices I also would hate that he essentially I hate this plan he

essentially was one and literally got horribly sick and died shortly after and

never got to just enjoy any part of his life ever because all he did is work and

pray so and that's what you get dick and then we we covered we began rather we

began to talk about Hale's writings and rulings on legal matters and that's the

first one we started with was the crime of rape too and to sum up real quick to

his credit he considered rape a serious crime and his prescribed punishment

ended with a rapist kicking at the end of a rope but to his discredit and there

was a lot of it he did not consider the word of a woman to be trusted over that

of a man and until all too recently there was a standard mandatory warning

given to juries in rape cases that instructed them to use any excuse to

discredit a rape victim he didn't think spousal rape was a thing because he

believed that a man obtained permanent sexual consent that cannot be withdrawn

the moment his wife said I do so I hate this guy so that's why that's why it

wasn't until 1993 that that what got scrubbed from our entire country so like

we said our boy Matt saw the entire world through this bizarre blend of

obsession with both the law and his fundamentalist religious belief the fact

that we're listening to him at all is just madness I mean not just because

he's been dead for hundreds of years in another country but because one of

hails most sacred legal tenants was that the authority of law and the courts could

only exist under the authority of a king this asshole died before America America

was a thing at all we should not listen to before America people so he believed

in the authority came from the king specifically because said King received

his authority from God the Father God the Son and God the Holy Spirit but we

here in America gave that entire idea the finger yeah along with the idea of

kings and nobles and all of it so in other words if you're listening to hail

on this why would you why would his legal opinions matter because literally

his entire foundation was based on the idea of divinely appointed justice and

that's ridiculous so seriously we cannot overstate how this dorks uber Christian

worldview influenced everything including how he tried cases that were

religious crimes so remember this was Matt he was a full supporter of the

Church of England he was a royally appointed judge so that meant to him

religious crimes and you know secular crime was all the same thing and because

the authority all came from God anyway and through the king and he's a royally

appointed judge religious crimes and other kind of car there was no

difference and then we try the same way and punished but you ready you ready to

some motherfucking witches fuck Puritans let's get into Puritans um over here in

this continent you might have heard of a little disagreement that took place in

Salem Massachusetts back in 1692 I actually know a lot about this

particular subject I watched a documentary recently well here's the

thing we're not talking about Salem but there's a connection the Salem witch

trials had more than 200 people accused 14 women and five men hanged and one

dude crushed between beneath stones because he wouldn't enter a plea at all

well the interesting thing about that was under the law you had to confess to

the crime but you also had to accuse two other people so as long as you did those

two things you were let go so hundreds of people were actually accused of

witchcraft only 19 were executed and only because those 19 people refused to

confess to a couple of dogs too they got hanged and I don't even think that and I

know there was um I think there was a black slave that was also executed but

she was not can I don't think she's considered one of the nineteen right

because because she was a buzz of her status yeah well yeah the Salem

Witch Trials is one of the few pieces of colonial American history that any of us

pay attention to in school because it's like this religious moral panic and also

everybody is forced to read The Crucible by Arthur Miller so the following quote

is from the book narratives of the witchcraft cases edited by George

Lincoln Burr published in 1914 so this is like a collection of primary source

documents related to the witchcraft trials of New England during the 17th

century so this is like trial records letters other documents like like so

that way there's one collection of all this primary source stuff so you can

research these cases so this is all from Massachusetts Connecticut New Hampshire

quote I observed in the prosecution of these affairs that there were in the

justices just judges and the others considered a conscientious endeavor to

do the thing that was right and to that end they consulted the precedence of

former times and precepts laid down by learned writers about witchcraft as

Keeble on the common law chapter conjuration also Sir Matthew Hale's

trial of witches printed anonymously 1682 unquote oh yeah fuck this guy so hard

so hard Matt had been dead for over 15 years he was still helping with state

executions in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ because you know you

know how how Jesus was all about all about condemning people to death yeah

yeah the judges and justices overseeing the Salem witch trials heavily consulted

this what says I wrote in my book but it's technically a pamphlet it was about

66 pages long 66 I don't think that was a coincidence that's once again this

this book is actually fucking awesome and you're about to find out why why

this was like a best-seller um saying a little that's title is called a trial of

witches with a Y instead of an I it's just the whole thing this is the part

where it gets a little fun sort of sort of so once again so the Salem witch

trials were like well we got us when they were like well we got to try some

witches how do we do that they start looking at the the precedents and

there's this bestseller that tells them exactly how to do it filled with all

this gripping drama so as someone who has recently freshened your brain with

some Salem witch trials you will see some incredible parallels here because

they were literally copying the notes of Sir Matthew Hale doing what he did way

back when he was Lord Chief Baron the judge in the witch trials too was a real

piece of shit he was a super piece of shit who was like even at the end a lot

of people were like they had remorse they had guilt and he was one of those

ones who was like no I did what I did and I'm glad what I did and fuck those

guys because he was a piece of shit to the very end he had no regret I sent

witches burning back to Satan and I'm pretty sure we could find that guy's

fucking grave easily and spit on it too so in a trial of witches how was a witch

identified legally speaking so the appendix of this book and the appendix

although the appendices are all stuff from later editions this is like this

parts from like the 1800s after which trials are no longer thing and they're

actually kind of the appendices are kind of judging the earlier part of the

book harshly this is a witch according to old descriptions was generally

blessed with a wrinkled face a furred brow a hairy lip a gobbler tooth a

squint eye a squeaking voice a scolding tongue a ragged coat on her back a skull

cap on her head a spindle in her hand and a dog or cat by her side and Lord

Coke pithily describes a witch to be a person that hath conference with the

devil to consult with him or to do some act unquote so it's just some old lady

yeah some old gnarly lady weird some weird-looking old lady well I mean

people in that time you know you get old you lose your teeth you get all gnarled

bent up and all yeah fucked up shriveled and fucked up looking and guess what

guess what asshole the pox has run through your village every time older

women we just grow hair on our face we just pluck it so another section is

equally helpful in identifying witches John Bell minister of the gospel at

glads mer or something but I can't pronounce says providentially two tests

appear to discover the crime if the witch cries out Lord have mercy on me

when apprehended and the inability of shedding tears because as a witch could

only shed three tears and those with her left eye her stock was quickly exhausted

and that was more striking as King James the first shrewdly observes since other

women in general are like the crocodile ready to weep upon every slight

occasion oh so there's you know we're you know women who cry all the time

they crying all the time but a witch will only only has three tears to shed

only out of her left eye so if a woman only cries not at all or only a little

bit that's one sign of witchcraft right there because a real woman is just a

sobbing mess every time you know how women be oh my god are we gonna talk

about the third nibble yet please talk about we're getting there so King James

just reference there had not helped things with his obsession with

witchcraft he published his book demonology in and in his literal first

year of reign as the recognized King of England he prescribed and passed the

first official statute that made witchcraft a crime punishable by death I

believe that was the year 1604 so literally right as Matt Matthew Hale is

about to enter the scene King James the guy he hated is has put down this

anti-witchcraft deal so in 1662 two old ladies in Barry st. Edmonds were

indicted for bewitching multiple people from their town including children three

of the alleged victims in the case fell into strange and violent fits in court

and couldn't bring themselves to speak so every time that these these kids are

brought into the court there and see the the quote-unquote witches they would

they got scared well and have their seizures and do these crazy things and

could not be brought to speak oh so these charges were brought by a local

wealthy fish merchant who believed his daughters were suffering from witchcraft

and here's where this little where it was speculation of Jamie all these

hundreds of years later was it a land grab so well here's the thing think

about the fact that the initial charges were laid down by this fish dude here

were the were fish and the sale of fish and the transportation of fish seemed to

come into the testimony of this shit a lot and also I don't know if fish should

have testimony testimony no it's just like fish merchants and people hauling

fish and people the fish you'll see what I'm talking about but anyway there's so

so this rich goddamn fish godfather in town is the one who lazy charge and then

a bunch of the testimonies people like oh yeah this such-and-such happened a

few years ago so the timelines really hard when you're reading this book it's

kind of hard to follow when certain things happen so just kind of keep in

the back of your mind that when this one dude named Pacey and it enters these

initial charges suddenly he rounds up all these all these witnesses and some

of them are from years before so and you said it's like oh yeah ten years ago

such-and-such happened so that's just one thing to keep in your mind I want

you to imagine playing like the Phoenix Wright version of this trial and how

many times you hit the objection button because holy shit we're about to get

into it the first deposition mentioned in the case is all about boobs or rather

breastfeeding third nipples no we haven't got to the third nipple yet but

don't worry we'll get there this is actually about just regular breasts so

according to the sworn testimony a woman named Dorothy Durant asked her neighbor

who was an elderly woman named Amy Dunne to babysit her infant for a penny and

she had only one important instruction so so Dorothy's asking old Amy to

babysit here's some here's a penny but you got to do this one thing quote

Dorothy Durant desired the said Amy not to suckle her child and laid a great

charge upon her not to do it upon when it which it was asked by the court why

did she give that direction she being an old woman and not capable of giving suck

it was answered by the said Dorothy Durant that she knew very well that she

did not give suck but that for some years before she had gone under the

reputation of a witch which was one cause for her to give the caution

another was that it was customary with an old woman that if they didn't look

after a sucking child and nothing would please it but the breast they did use to

please the child to give it the breast and it did please the child but it

sucked nothing but wind which did the child hurt unquote so she's basically

saying it gets gas yeah she's saying I want to make my baby gassy plus plus

some people will say you're like a witchy wait woman I don't want you put

in your wrinkly old tip so that's her only rule I mean now granted I I do

think that it's like yeah I mean that seems like a reasonable request like

here just watch my kid don't so old Amy ignored the mother's wishes and put the

baby up to her wrinkled old breast presumably filled with sawdust when

Dorothy found out so she comes back and she comes up baby baby's gonna be all

gassy and she finds out she comes out so so so she just yells at her and then

Amy did not take this lightly quote Amy used many high expressions and

threatening speeches towards her telling her that she had is good to have done

otherwise and to have found fault with her and so departed out of her house

unquote that night the baby grew sick and seems to have experienced seizures

and this affliction lasted for weeks the baby's not doing great but Dorothy

visited a man referred to as dr. Jacob who told Dorothy to hang the child's

blanket next to the hearth and then search for anything that might be hiding

in the child's bed quote oh this sounds like some some real doctor here's what

you do if you want to see what's wrong with your kid you can't believe you

came you hang the the comforter up by the fire then you root around the

blanket anything you find you gotta look for it so from this is quoting again

from trial of witches quote from the blankets there fell out of the same a

great toad which ran up and down the hearth and she having a young youth only

with her in the house desired him to catch the toad and throw it into the

fire which the youth did accordingly and held it there with tongs and in

soon there was in the fire it made a great and horrible noise and after a

space there was a flashing in the fire like gunpowder making a noise like the

discharge of a pistol and there upon the toad was no more seen nor heard okay so

they murdered a frog so the toad didn't burn it vanished back to hell like

literally it's like this thing literally so your toe just explodes in her in her

fireplace yeah this sounds like some bullshit is the doctor the doctor's

prescription and the cure and the chair then I would say here's this is when it

gets really interesting the next day Amy Denny's niece came to visit her aunt and

found the old lady quote in a most lamentable condition having her face

all scorched with fire and that she was sitting alone in her house and her

smock without any fire unquote so Amy's all fucked up and burned up to the toad

exploded coincidence word got back to the pissed off mother door probably so

Dorothy finds out about Amy's burn and she wants to go check it out herself and

so seeing the woman all burned Dorothy asked what happened quote Amy replied

that she might thank her for it the any reply that she might thank her for it as

in Dorothy for that this deponent meaning Dorothy was the cause there of

the burns that she but that she should live to see some of her children dead

and she upon crutches so she's like I'm the reason you're the reason I'm all

burned up bitch one of your kids is gonna die and you're gonna be limping

around on crutches hail Satan that's what Amy had to say so the baby meanwhile

fully recovered after the exploding toad incident that was the killer dr. Jacob

was right on the money about how to cure this kid but Amy's prophecy began to

take effect on March 6th when Dorothy's 10 year old daughter Elizabeth began to

experience the same symptoms as her baby brother had before huh okay so as

it couldn't have been like a communicable disease there's been a

disease that the baby got better from and then her sister whatever it was

that's like a flu or whatever no it's this is the curse of Amy Dunne okay all

right when Dorothy returned from the apothecary with medicine for her child

she found Amy Dunne sitting in her home again explaining she'd come to visit the

child and bring her water this old bitty really just needs to leave this

family alone guess what time it is what time it is and we're back and we're

continuing this old lady named Amy Dunne tormenting this family according to the

first zero reason here's the other thing to remember too it's so easy to like

envision this all the scene but what this is is all a woman on a witness

stand telling yeah it sounds like a bunch of bullshittery that's always the

lens to remember it from but you like or but just for fun we can imagine this is

all real and how it really happened fucking old it's only old baby she

returns home to her sick child she's got some medicine and Amy does like I came

here to visit her and bring her water as you might imagine Dorothy's already

thrown this little lady out of her house once did not take kindly to this visit

and threw her out of her home quote and this is Amy Dunne speaking

many of them accused for witchcraft and some of them have been condemned unquote

yeah that sounds like a bunch of bunch of bullshit so not long after the death

of her daughter Elizabeth did die Dorothy Durant claimed she became lame

in both of her legs from the knee down forcing her to walk on crutches okay and

that couldn't just be hypochondria or well let you be the judge of this when I

tell you this next part all right I'm buckling in and by a great miracle when

Amy Dunne was pronounced guilty Dorothy found herself fully healed with full use

of her limbs she threw her crutches aside it's like praise Jesus I'm healed

maybe this was even before the execution this after the guilty verdict there's no

fuckery at all there no crutches no problem all right the next victims

listed in the case were Elizabeth and Deborah Pacey now this the Pacey family

is where the actual accusations came from that brought them to court everyone

else or witnesses brought in to support what this the father of the Pacey's

family who brought the charges were so Elizabeth and Deborah Pacey were two

little girls aged 11 and 9 Elizabeth Pacey was was brought to court when all

when the trial was going on but unable to speak or move little Deborah was too

sick to travel to court at the end and all her parents feared she would die

because some of the names are similar it becomes confusing so I'll try to keep

everybody straight so about when we're talking about Elizabeth Pacey we're

talking about the nine-year-old okay quote Amy Dunne was privately brought to

Elizabeth Pacey and she touched her hand whereupon the child without so much as

seeing her for our eyes were closed all the while suddenly leaped up and

catched Amy Dunne by the hand and afterwards by the face and with her

nails scratched her till blood came and would by no means leave her until she

was taken from her and afterwards the child would still be pressing towards

her and making signs of anger conceived against her unquote so when they brought

so this little kid just like laying there and they bring Amy Dunne to go

touch this like catatonic kids hand so many kids like yeah it comes flying at

her trying to scratch they're like see she's like see this is freaking the kid

out which or the kid could have just had a fever okay you know you will see how

you judge the situation by the time we get to the very end it's like and that's

best-case scenario that it's not just you're all right fucker being super

charitable all right okay we're now we're gonna jump back in time so this

was the scene in court the little kid gets touched by the witch and and she

freaks out so now we're gonna go back in time to win it all began for the Pacey

family so according to the testimony of the father Samuel the guy who brought

the charges and is the rich mitt fish dude Deborah the nine-year-old lost the

use of her legs on October 10th 1662 and this like before any witches enter

the story this something happened to this kid where she couldn't walk and so

she would just literally be asked to be carried to different places around the

house so this time of day the poor kid had asked to be set to where she could

look out onto the ocean and so she's just sitting there when Amy Dunne stops

by the house to purchase herring so like they like the salted bare little barrels

of salt is there to get some fish she stops by and she was told to go away

three times so Amy Dunne comes by I want some fish fuck off you old broad yeah

then she comes back so after the third rejection Amy began grumbling under her

breath as she's as she walks away quote but at the very same instant of time the

said child was taken with most violent fits feeling the most extreme pain in

her stomach like the pricking of pins and the shrieking in a most dreadful

manner like unto a whelp and not unto a sensible creature unquote so the moment

Amy Dunne he goes away for the third time complaining under breath the kid

has seizures and shit a nearby doctor could not determine the cause for

Deborah's symptoms that was when they began to suspect the true cause was the

witchcraft of Amy Dunne and not possible like epilepsy or something soon their

older daughter Elizabeth also fell ill with the same symptoms again possible

communicable disease the parents also had this to say quote and further the

said children being grievously afflicted would severally complain in their

extremity and also in intervals that Amy Dunne together with one other woman

whose person and clothes they described thus did afflict them and their

apparitions appearing before them to their great terror and affrightment and

sometimes they would cry out saying there stands Amy Dunne and there rose

colander the other person troubling them unquote so meet Rose the second

which that is now in Righteous Judge Hale's crosshairs she first appears as a

phantom just she is the apparition of Rose

colander more on her in a bit the girls fits would cause them to lose use of one

entire side of their bodies and it wasn't always the same side sometimes

they were so sensitive they would scream from a gentle touch then their bodies

would be fine but they would go deaf blind or lose the ability to speak

sometimes they would go a few days in perfect health and other times they

would have up to five fits a day at the end of which they would cough up pins

P like P I N S as in pins and needles and one girl one time coughed up a

two-penny nail with a broad head oh yeah this sounds like a bunch of bullshit

bring it up see from the hardware store and was later the pins and this nail

were later produced in the court as evidence of Satan's involvement I love

the say-so of like some random ass dude yeah she was coughing up pins she must

be a witch like this isn't the shit I grabbed out of my barn before I showed

up in court this is the stuff my daughter coughed up so Sam stayed with

his daughters for two months and during this time he'd demand they read passages

from the New Testament but before they could pronounce the names of Lord Jesus

or Christ another fit would start up they would be like and our they

couldn't say you know the names of God in any of his forms but and then they

would start with the coughing up pins and all that but when they came across

the names Satan or devil they would clap their fingers on the book and say this

bites but it makes me speak right well quote the father swore his daughters

could see Amy Dunne and Rose Cullender in their fits who that threatened to

torment them ten times as much if they complained okay and he knows this out

well he's obviously he's testifying to her in a court of law and he's rich ah

that changes everything quote in their fits they would cry out there stands Amy

Dunne or Rose Cullender and sometimes in one place and sometimes in another

running with great violence to the place where they fancy them to stand striking

at them if present they would appear to them sometimes spinning sometimes

reeling or in other postures to writing or threatening them unquote so the little

girls are running around swatting at the air saying there they are there they are

nope she's over there now playing ghost whack-a-mole this must have been so

hilarious for these kids if for no I mean best-case scenario they're fucking

with their dad and worst-case scenario they're just being complacent or they're

doing what they're doing exactly what they're told yeah you know this will be

up to you and the listeners to judge by the time we get to the end of all this

this madness so the girls witnessed little beasts running around the house

that looked like mice but no one else ever saw a girl claimed she grabbed one

with fireplace tongs and threw it into the fire where it screeched like a rat

as it burned another time a bug that looked like a bee tried to fly in a

little Deborah's mouth which caused her to run inside and then she fell into

another one of her seizures and at the end of which that's where the two penny

nail oh okay and she explained that the bee tried to force the nail down her

throat oh you know be sent by Amy and Rose you know Satan's be bees so known

for their ability to carry shit as Nicolas Cage said not the bees are you

just bees they're everywhere so apparently they're fucking trying to

shove nails down your throat that's that's pretty hardcore that's a

different kind of killer bee I guess African bees it turned out that the

English bees were way scarier now that would then insert your joke about is

this an African bee or European bee it's just a weather measure of weight ratios

how could the nail be carried another time one of the girls claimed that a

swarm of flies all carry little pins for their amazing carrying

see how they carry little needles around this is where we get into the

nature of the so-called evidence the language in trial of witches is old and

stilted and it sometimes buries important information about the source

of like who the person being deposed is who testified to things and presents a

lot of evidence as fact without really saying who was around to witness things

but many times it does say like the deponent said this you have to kind of

like diagram the sentences and make mental gymnastics but it's like oh so

here's a good example that's a little easier to decipher this sort of thing

because there's a lot of hearsay like shit that would never be admitted. Well yeah that's

nothing but hearsay all of it's hearsay. So example quote at another time the said

elder child declared unto a woman named Margaret Arnold and sitting by the fire

suddenly started up and said she saw a mouse one of those beast mice and she

crept under the table looking after it and at length she put something in her

apron saying she had caught it and immediately she ran to the fire and

threw it in and there it did appear to this deponent person being deposed this

Margaret lady and there did appear upon it to this deponent like the flashing of

gunpowder though she confessed she saw nothing in the child's hands unquote so

she's the little girl's like I see it I see it grabbed something in her apron and

then throws something in the fireplace and it explodes just like gunpowder and she

says she never actually saw the mouse just the explosion in the hall antics

this was accepted as testimony towards guilt. Yeah cuz again this fuckery just

would not exist. Even though and Matthew Hale is kind of invisible in this text

but remember he's the judge overseeing this whole fucking thing rolling on the

objections and and making determinations about what kind of evidence is and is

not allowed so anything that is allowed is because Matt thinks it's fine. Fine to

have this kind of bullshit. So we have little girls having weird fits acting

out barfing up little pieces of metal and these are those are the only things

actually witnessed by like the adults. Everything else is stories and claims

from the girls with no other direct witnesses like daddy blah blah blah

happened. So far all of it is daddy all of this happened. And because none of the kids are

testifying because oh we just can't because they go into seizures

every time they're in court with these evil witches there's like ah we can't do

it sorry. 318 years later the Satanic Panic began in the 1980s that echoes a

lot of this shit. Oh God. The Satanic Panic. Another thing I know a bit about.

Yeah I mean religious hysteria built off the testimony of little kids saying

ridiculous things like exploding demon mice or toilets that flush you down into

Satan's basement. You know it's maybe don't ask little children leading

questions and give them approval by saying with them saying their shit. Oh yeah I mean they

will run with it. Not to mention adults will put words in children's mouths. And

that even the memory of adults is easily fucked with and fallible so that's all of that but even

then even then this is ridiculous even 350 years ago this is like sensible

people will be like wait a second. Oh well yeah I mean you know so it's the

California preschool trial. Yeah this is this own version of it except this is

these two weird old ladies in town being persecuted by a fishmonger. So the girl

claimed that Amy Dunne and Rose Cullender tormented them night and day,

dared them to drown themselves, cut their own throats, or otherwise destroy

themselves. When having fits they would scream out Rose Cullender and Amy Dunne

why do you not cum yourselves but send your imps to torment us? Unquote.

Remember the Durant family from the very first accusation? Deborah was the pissed

off mom. So this is another relative. Edmund Durant testified that Rose

Cullender visited his house to buy herring. Sound familiar? And when the old

crone was turned away his daughter Ann fell ill with stomach pains and

pinprick sensations on her skin. She then fell into swooning fits and when she

woke up she swore she had seen the apparition of Rose Cullender who

threatened to torment her. Young Ann was present in court but unable to speak and

when experienced violence fits if brought into the presence of old Rose. So

the accused couldn't face her accuser and the testimony couldn't be given so

so instead they just took the hearsay evidence from the parents. So the parents

were the only ones who testified in this case. A mother named Diana Booking swore

that her daughter Jane was too weak to travel to court but testified the girl

was afflicted with swooning fits and stomach pains. In February the child

would eat very little food and would vomit up crooked pins. Other times they

would find pins in the child's hands. Jane would go mute for days at a time

and when the episode finally passed she told her mother that Amy

Dunne would not suffer her to speak. The pins and a nail from Jane Booking were

also entered into evidence. Oh my god. Yeah this the pins that I found in the hands

literally in the hands just held in the hand of her daughter who isn't there to

even talk about it but that's evidence of this these women being in league with

Satan and afflicting all of these poor girls. And again it could just be some

it's either complete bullshit or it's like some of these kids had some kind of

fucking like flu. These kids were sick. Another girl named Susan Chandler was

said to be working in the town of Laxstauf, this is the town where all this

was supposedly going on, when she was visited by Rose Cullender who frightened

her so badly she ran home to her mother Mary. So literally she just sees the

scary old lady, freaks out, runs home. That night Susan fell into violent fits and

screamed out the name of Rose Cullender, swearing she could see the crone sitting

on her bed, sometimes with enormous dog by her side. Seeing Rose Cullender

sitting there with a dog next to her in the bed, the Phantom. Presumably. So Susan

vomited up pens like everyone else and sometimes she would lose her eyesight or

power of speech, according to her mother who testified on her behalf not bringing

the kid to court. It was at this point in the timeline that this is when Samuel

Pacy formally accused the old women of bewitching his daughters and then a

warrant was granted to drag Amy and Rose in front of Sir Edmund Bacon, who was the

authority in that area. They confessed nothing, quoting again from a trial of

witches, quote, he gave order that they should be searched, whereupon this

deponent, this is Mary Chandler, with five others were appointed to do the same, and

coming to the house of Rose Cullender, they did acquaint her with what they

were come about, and asked whether she would consented by which they should

search her. She did not oppose it, whereupon they began at her head, and so

stripped her naked, and in the lower part of her belly they found a thing like a

teat an inch long. They questioned her about it, and she said that she had

gotten a strain by carrying water which caused that extressance, but upon

narrower search they found her in her privy parts three more extressances of

teats, but smaller than the former. This deponent further saith that in the long

teat at the end thereof there was a little hole, and it appeared unto them as

if it had been lately sucked, and upon the straining of it there was issued out

a white milky matter."

Unquote.

Ah, yeah.

You see that she is nursing her evil familiar.

Or she just could have sores.

Yeah, she's got this horrible growth that's oozing pus, and then...

Yeah, uh...

This poor old lady is in stripped naked and humiliated, and they're like, all of her bumps and polyps, and now they're like, yeah, that's proof of...

that you're in league with...

Yeah, I mean, again, it's like the phrase, um, third nipple was also just really considered, like, you know, moles.

So it's like, I have a tit mole, I'd be considered a witch.

Well, in this case, the witch's tit was literally a third tit on her gut, and it was only an inch long.

And it was probably just a...

A hussy, disgusting little growth.

Poor old lady.

Just so we're clear, the above was medical evidence presented in court as proof of guilt.

Oh, that's so gross.

But you know what it's time for?

Ads!

And we're back.

We're back. We're back talking about, uh, the events of this lovely, uh, witchcraft trial, oversaw by Judge.

In this case, uh, he's like the Lord Chief Baron Matthew Hale.

So when eventually Susan Chandler was brought into court, guess what?

FITs prevented her from giving testimony.

But she recovered a little while later, because they brought her, took her out of the court, and then she got better.

And so, like, she came to her and was like, are you good? Can we bring you back in so you can quickly do this?

And she's like, yes. Back to the source.

Quote.

When she was sworn and asked what could she say against either of the prisoners.

Before she could make any answer, she fell into her fits,

screeching out in a miserable manner,

crying, burn her! Burn her!

Which were all the words she could speak.

Unquote.

Oh, so gross. Okay.

The trial continued with expert opinions.

Expert opinions?

Yes, the expert witnesses are coming in now.

Oh!

A doctor hypothesized that the devil worked on people's bodies by stirring up and exciting the humors.

You know, the humors, blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile.

The ways our bodies work, of course.

Of course.

And so the devil can unbalance your humors, causing these afflictions.

And that the devil was taking natural afflictions and making them worse.

So one of the, and there wasn't really like a traditional prosecution and defense,

like we would think of them in this case,

but there was a reasonable guy we're going to talk about in a minute,

who did present some like, well, what about something that doesn't sound bad shit crazy?

And so one of the questions was, well, this one girl already was getting sick,

something was wrong with her before the witch ever even showed up and got mad.

She had lost the use of her legs already before,

before Amy Dunne even showed up in her doorstep.

So literally he's saying, well, no, no, no, it's okay.

Because then when she casts the curse, it just made everything worse.

That's just proof, more proof of the devil's involved.

Because the devil just messes with your healers.

That is fucking ridiculous.

He also remarked that this was very similar to the witchings that took place recently in Denmark.

Science!

I am the lead witch finder.

Yes.

Well, the witch finder general was,

some of these other cases that were tried in this same location

were literally brought forth by the king's witch finder.

So speaking of the more sensible guy I mentioned earlier,

And he did not feel that the evidence was enough to convict these prisoners.

Yes, same.

He said that even if the children were truly bewitched,

he was like, let's just say, for sake of argument,

that this is real and this isn't utter horseshit.

This is Satan.

The Satan is here.

How could this evidence be used to prove that these are the two women who did it?

He warned,

Who might altogether be innocent in such matters.

In other words,

This could be total horseshit.

If this bolts, anybody can say anything if you're going to believe this.

This is a way to just destroy your neighbors,

ruin people, and this is fucked and we shouldn't do this.

Hence the entire Salem Witch Trials.

Hence the entire point of Arthur Miller's play.

Oh my god.

Yeah, it's complete fucking nonsense.

Sadly, this is the one reasonable person in this entire goddamn story.

So, respect to you, Keeling.

You were the one good one, but you didn't win.

Oh well.

It actually took another guy named Holt later on.

There was one more witch trial in this,

because this one location was used for a whole series of famous witch trials.

And after Hale was retired,

this other guy Holt was the one who was like,

this is all bullshit.

And he kind of put it shut.

He's kind of the guy who closed down the era of these kind of things.

So Keeling and Holt are our only heroes, actual heroes in this story.

And Holt's not even in this one.

So Keeling, he tried his best, but he did not succeed

to argue that side of things.

But you'll see him try in some other ways.

And then once again, he's just saying,

anybody can accuse anybody.

No one is safe if this is allowed.

And they're like, yeah, whatever, Satan.

So yeah, he's all we got.

So once again, under Keeling's direction,

they tried to do some science.

They wanted to conduct some experiments to try to prove

that it truly was Amy and Rose that are causing all this shit.

Because they're like, well, the kids are freaking out

the presence of these witches.

So what if we cover their eyes and have different people

come in the room and touch them and whatever

and see how they react.

See, this is just grifter shit.

This is absolute fucking nonsense.

This is a fucking clown show.

But OK, we're going to blindfold the kids

and this will help us determine Satan's involvement.

Because Satan's... Satan.

So they do this thing.

So Keeling's like, look, this way we'll see

if it's really these women causing them to freak out or not.

So they did this.

And in one experiment, a girl was blindfolded

and just touched by a clerk of the court,

one of the staff or whatever.

And the girl freaks out and goes into the room

and freaks out and goes into one of her fits,

just as if she'd been touched by Amy or Rose.

Mm hmm.

Yeah, don't say.

And so Keeling's like, see, this might be...

This is bullshit.

This is some bullshit going on.

However, Mr. Pacey, the guy who brought the charges

in the first place, he argued successfully

that if the girl thought she was being touched by the witch,

of course she'd react in the same way.

That the fear brought on by the witch,

it's real and this is just, once again,

further proof of guilt.

Or it's proof of complete and total fucking bullshit.

Ipso facto, habeas corpses,

uh, expecto patronum.

I mean, uh, alright, let's keep going.

He also argued in this big monologue

that since these children were from unrelated families,

there could be no conspiracy for them to act in similar ways.

They're like, uh, nobody asked you about that, dude.

Why don't you just loudly say that?

That's not fishy at all, fish guy.

Yeah.

This fact may, I'm too missed out.

In my headcanon, this dude is where we get the term fishy from.

That's not real, but Jamie made it up.

Uh, so a man named John Soem

testified that Rose had screamed obscenities at him

and issued vague threats after he damaged part of her house

with his merchant cart.

Yeah, I would have fucking, yeah, I would have bitched him out too.

So this dude clipped the side of her house,

messed up her brickwork, or whatever.

And she's like, you motherfucker.

She comes out screaming at him.

During that day, the same cart overturned multiple times,

then ended up stuck in a gate.

Maybe it's because he sucks at driving a cart.

Yeah, we already determined he can't steer,

doesn't know what he's doing.

He sucks.

I love the cause and effect,

like simple common sense people have.

So this is the best part.

After he crashes his cart into this woman's house

and she yells at him,

his cart overturns multiple times

and then gets stuck in this gate.

So then these dudes are straining,

they're pushing the gate through

and having to carry all this heavy shit.

And all of this work gave them all spontaneous nosebleeds.

Satan!

Witch!

The witch has made, doth made my nose bleed!

Oh, that's ridiculous.

It's so funny, except this ends with two

old women dangling from ropes.

That's so fucking awful.

Jesus Christ.

Okay, another man named Robert Sheringham

swore to a story from, once again,

a lot of these stories are from years before,

so it's like a few years back,

and he declares after he ran into Rose's house with his cart,

she threatened that his horses should suffer,

and all four of the animals died within a short time.

His pigs began jumping around and then dropping dead.

He lost the use of his legs,

and he was afflicted with lice of extraordinary bigness.

And was forced to-

You might need a fucking- your farm has lice, dude.

And was forced to burn all his clothes.

Well, I mean, that could just be like,

that's a you thing.

Maybe you should have kept a clean of farm.

At some point, unspecified, after this woman

calls at him for crashing into his house,

his animals all start to die, and it's clearly all her fault.

Clearly.

Testimony against Amy Dunney claimed that she had

hexed a flock of geese to death.

That she had correctly predicted the collapse

of a newly constructed chimney.

Evil prophecy.

And, my favorite, this one woman

asked Amy to help fetch a barrel of salted fish home.

So, the fish is being brought by boat to the shore

in a barrel.

Oh, these old biddies want these just some fucking fish.

Well, no, this other woman's saying,

hey, old Amy, come help me bring this barrel of fish back.

And, so, Amy supposedly said,

I will go when you actually have it.

And, when the woman went to the shore

to retrieve her barrel, the fisherman told her

it had mysteriously fallen off the side of the boat

into the ocean and gone to the devil.

Truly, there was no evil that Amy Dunney would not perpetrate.

She took that woman's barrel of salted herring away.

You know, so far, it seems like

all the people in this town just suck.

It's a witch! It's a witch!

And, they're like, every time these poor old biddies

point out how much these people suck,

they're like, she's a witch, burn her!

Well, no, we don't burn in England at this point.

That was the Spanish Inquisition.

We hang our witches like civilized people.

Alright, so, with all the evidence presented

and all the legal opinions offered,

there were two questions the court had to ask.

This is in the book. The first question,

were the children actually bewitched?

Second legal question, if so, are Amy Dunney

and Rose Cullender guilty?

So, the pamphlet is quick to defend these people

for never asking the first obvious question,

are witches a thing?

Is this real?

Is this real? Or is this like a crock of shit?

Quote, that there were such creatures as witches,

he made no doubt at all.

For first, the scriptures had affirmed so much.

Secondly, the wisdom of all nations

had provided laws against such persons,

which is an argument of their confidence

of such a crime.

And such hath been the judgment of this kingdom,

as appears by the act of parliament,

which hath provided punishments,

proportionable to the quality of the offense,

and desired them strictly to observe their evidence,

and desired the great God of heaven

to direct their hearts of this weighty thing

they had in their hand.

For to condemn the innocent,

and to let the guilty go free,

were both an abomination to the Lord.

Unquote.

Witches are totally real, because it's in the Bible.

Although the king in parliament said so.

I'm telling you, Jesus,

he was a notorious fan of capital punishment.

Yeah, he was all about it.

He was all about it.

You know how when the woman was being stoned to death,

and he was like,

you need bigger, sharper rucks.

That's the Jesus.

All that in mind,

the jury went back for their deliberations

for half an hour.

For a whole thirty minutes?

After weeks of all of this,

they were like,

we got this.

Two identical verdicts.

Guilty!

Hang the witch!

Is.

Both of them.

These poor old biddies.

The people in this town suck.

And remember,

this is the moment that this one woman

leaps to her feet and she's like,

Praise Jesus!

I can walk!

Because the moment the guilty verdict is written,

some of the people are immediately like,

we're all better now!

Starting with that woman who literally threw aside her crutches.

What should have been a giant red flag?

Like a fucking televangelist thing.

It's like,

I'm healed!

So the next morning,

after the guilty verdict,

all the kids were brought to Lord Hale's lodgings.

And everyone except Susan Chandler seemed fully cured.

Like all the kids are better except one girl

still got a tummy ache and some issues.

A few of the children were brought into court

and they were brought back in

now that the official proceedings are over.

And they were like,

Oh yeah.

Everything that, yeah guys,

the way you did it,

we could hear you.

We couldn't talk,

but you got it right.

Good job.

Gold star.

Everything you got,

you nailed it.

All right.

So Amy and Rose at this point did not say much

in their own defense

because they were already pronounced guilty.

Their fates were already sealed.

So there's like,

you know, fuck you kids.

You fucking lying piece of shit.

We're going to die.

No wonder these old biddies were so mad all the time.

Living in this town full of horrible people.

These people.

You suck ass.

They're probably getting free fish for the rest of their lives.

So the main account from trial of witches ends with this quote,

in conclusion,

the judge and all the court were fully satisfied with their verdict.

And there upon gave judgment against the witches that they should be hanged.

They were much urged to confess,

but would not.

Now the next part is to understand that the author of this is technically

anonymous.

It was published anonymously and it was published as if some person was

here as a witness for this whole thing and just wrote this as his account.

Yeah, like some kind of reporter.

Right.

So he says,

that morning we departed for Cambridge,

but no reprieve was granted and they were executed on Monday,

the 17th of March following,

but they confessed nothing.

End of the trial,

in all caps,

unquote.

Oh,

justice was done?

Yeah.

And justice for all.

Oh my God.

Are they gonna throw her?

Matthew Hale.

They didn't even throw her in the water first to see if she'd float.

Matthew Hale,

crushing it once again as the ultimate awesome judge,

making sure that some motherfucking witches were not going to be suffered to

live while he was around.

There we have it.

So based on second and third hand evidence,

apparitions and dreams,

weird coincidences like accidents and dying animals and nosebleeds,

of pins and nails and stomach aches and seizures and fainting spells,

cysts and polyps and other growths were witches teats used to suckle

familiars and discolored skin was devil's marks as proof of their pact with

the adversary.

Or they could just be age spots, you dick.

Poor old ladies before medicine really existed.

So for these crimes against God and man,

these two elderly women were hanged by the neck until they were dead.

And Lord Chief Baron Matthew Hale,

I'm sure slept like a baby that night after his nightly prayers.

Yeah, that's a, that's a gross story.

So that's a story of Matthew Hale and witchcraft.

Yeah, he's a real dick.

Yeah. And so as a Salem witch trail, does that sound familiar?

Oh yeah. I mean, it's so, I mean, again,

it's like this has all been so par for the course.

Except this one really does seem like this is a tinged with the,

with the, with the interest of this business, whether,

whether it was business reasons or he just hated these two women because they

kept wanting to come around and be all smelly and wanting to buy fish from

him. Either way,

he wanted these two women out and it very seems like this was like a

conspiracy. He got all these people that he paid them off and they're like,

their children all suddenly were cured the moment the guilt,

cause like I said, they didn't even wait for the women to die.

There's like the moment there was a guilty verdict, this woman's like,

I can walk again. It's like, gee, these people.

These are some fucking horrible people. And again, I mean,

the Salem witch trials, it was no different. It was just bigger.

They accused hundreds of people.

That one seemed more like a case of true like mass hysteria.

Whereas this one feels more like a conspiracy.

Well, the mass hysteria started and it's like, again,

there's so many different reasons of why it might've gotten out of hand.

Once you get that many people involved, there's more than one reason.

I mean, yeah, it's like, was there ergot poisoning?

There might've been that. There might've been just like a lot of grudges

against neighbors being expressed.

The official, the kids that were initially afflicted,

they had come as orphans and servants from the French and Indian war

and started for some reason that no one could see would just start

crying and shivering. And it's like, it's very possible.

Some of these kids just had severe PTSD and they didn't fucking know

anything about it. So it must be witchcraft.

And then it turned into different land grabs and some mass hysteria.

There was a lot of complicated issues.

It got out of hand.

It got out of hand. And again, most of the people involved after

it was all said and done expressed remorse, especially because

one of the guys who were last to hang, he was, I want to say

he was a reverend and he recited the Lord's prayer

as they were about to hang him. And the people

were like, he shouldn't be able to say the Lord's prayer if he's a witch. You can't. You physically wouldn't

be able to do it. So they started to panic and try to save him

and they pushed him down to hang him faster.

The technicality was there was one word difference in the true Lord's prayer

They tried to give some kind of bullshitty

reason afterwards. He missed one word.

They didn't even give him a chance to finish it because they were like, holy shit, he might be innocent.

Hang him. So again, getting back to Matthew Hale, it's like we got this guy

who literally had women executed for fucking witchcraft

and we're supposed to listen to his words. However,

we're about to, we're getting into something. So we've come full circle, Bambi.

Coming back right around to the topic that kind of brought us here at the beginning of

episode one. Oh, goody goody. But you know what it's time for first?

Oh shit. Ads! We love ads.

And we're back. Back from those great

ads. So like I said, we're now looping back around to

what brought us here in the first place. This whole, the abortion debate

in the United States and the Supreme Court case that cited Hale very heavily

the ruling that came out last year. So are we going to start burning witches too?

Let's hang him. So at this point we've established what kind of person Matthew Hale

was and the kinds of cases he presided over. Like most men of his place and time

he didn't believe that women should be allowed to own property, make financial

decisions, or bring legal action. Well, you know, technically neither did we

until almost the 70s. Oh yeah, you couldn't own a checking account, have a credit card.

No, and that was in the 70s. We had even lush rights

before then. It's really gross. We learned that, you know, your right to not be raped by

your husband didn't fully kick in until the mid 90s, early 90s.

You know, back then during Hale's time, a father basically owned his daughter

and until he sold her off to another dude who owned her for the rest of her life.

Unless she was lucky enough for him to die first. Widows were some of the few people who sometimes

got a tiny bit of autonomy and power. And honestly, widows

at that time period too, especially like turn of the century, they fucking rocked.

It's like, my husband is dead. Long live my dead husband.

And I've got money. So, once again, Matthew Hale is a guy who didn't believe

that a husband violently raping his wife is a crime. He instructed juries

to be skeptical of testimony from a woman in rape cases.

However, witch trials, it's all cool anything goes.

He considered, you know, men getting nosebleeds and the polyps in an old lady's vagina

as proof of guilt in a capital case that ended with two

executions. Which, again, the court shouldn't be looking at old ladies' vaginas.

For pretty much any reason. That's none of your business.

So, I think it's fair to say we both agree Matthew Hale sucks.

And it makes no sense. We're supposed to take his writings on the common law

as instructive in our life. So, yeah, sorry, we're supposed

to listen to Matthew Hale, according to the Supreme Court. Oh, yeah, fuck a bunch of that.

But ignore the parts that we don't like, whether he hanged women as witches or believed

that all power derived from God through a divinely important king, which is specifically

un-American. If I were to, like, suppose we had a Ouija board and we could summon

and talk to Matthew Hale, I don't think he would think our entire legal system

was legitimate at all, because we rebelled against His Majesty, the divinely

appointed King George III. Oh, yeah, no, as far as he's concerned, America could just burn.

Well, let me say this out loud. The laws of another country for more than 300

years ago should have no bearing on the lives of Americans in the 21st century.

Nah, preach. And yet, are you ready for the biggest

mind-fuck of all? Give it. Bring it.

So, back at the beginning of the first episode, I read you a selection from the majority opinion

of the United States Supreme Court in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization.

That case, that stripped away a woman's rights to make private medical decisions

about her own body.

So, as you can see, the only quoted lines from Hale are great crime and

about her own body are great prison.

So, you know how incredibly bad movies will use very selective pull quotes from reviews

to make them sound awesome? So, like some stinking turd of a film

will have the quote, breathtaking Tucson Observer.

And then you actually read the review and it says, this movie was a breathtaking piece of shit.

So, you're familiar with that practice? Well, this kind of thing happens in academic

circles also all the time. So, like you're writing a paper and

you have a premise in mind and then suddenly the source you're citing doesn't

really support the point you're trying to make. So, if you're acting in good faith, you either drop that

source and find something that does support your argument or you include it but you

argue against it and you try to state why, well, this source said this but

I can argue against it. But if you're acting in bad faith, if for example you're dishonest

and maybe a worthless shit pile of a human being and all you care

about is advancing a political agenda, well, that's when you whip out

the trick used to sell bad movies. You lie while still being technically

accurate. So, let's follow the footnotes, shall we? Let's start

with that very first book cited. It's Pleas of the Crown by our boy Matthew Hale.

This is a very dry tome that's intended to be referenced rather than

read. It lays out definitions and standards and prescriptions as part of this attempt to

standardize English common law. So, this is not even meant, like I said, it's not a reading book. This is like

you'd look this shit up as a lawyer or judge to determine matters

of law. Yeah, different cases. So, of this section of the

book that we're going from is called Of the Kinds of Offenses, and

it's a list of all kinds of crimes, starting with heresy and witchcraft.

You know, things that really matter, you know. Ugh, okay.

Because remember, religious crime and secular crime are all the same, and this is

to Hale. And working our way down until we get to murder on page 53

and this is the one where Justice Alito cites Matthew Hale.

So the page continues with this long legal definition called What Killing?

So this is the page from Pleas of the Crown. So, What Killing? Hale asks and

answers with, Poison, weapon, gun, bow, crushing, bruising, smothering,

strangling, famishing, inciting dogs. Yes, even

dogs are a legal murder weapon. Quote, laying

a sick man in the cold, laying an infant in an orchard under leaves,

and he is stricken with a kite. Which is weirdly specific all of a sudden.

Like everything else is like, gun, pistol, hiding a baby under leaves,

and then he's hit with a kite. So I'm assuming that was a specific case he was referencing

there. And, quote, a man keeps a beast used to strike knowingly

and ties a knot up. The beast kills a man. So you're

responsible. Yeah, you're responsible for your animals. All this seems perfectly reasonable so far.

You shouldn't sic mean dogs on people or shoot them. That's murder.

Alright. The kite thing's a little weird, but okay. But still, hiding babies

under leaves until they die, also murder. Yeah, I mean, and you know

a lot of folklore. Right. You'd hide your baby because

it was a changeling. Laying a baby out to be exposed is murder. Yeah, it's murder.

No, it's not a changeling. It's your baby. Stop that shit.

Killing babies is murder. Alright, so next question about the subject

of murder is what the person killed. And the answer, the first part

of the answer is extremely important. Quote, it must be a person

in rerum naturae. Unquote. Popping over to uslegal.com

and checking out their definitions page to find out what this Latin phrase

rerum naturae means in the American legal system. Quote, this means

in the nature of things, in existence. This phrase was used in a dilatory

plea alleging that the plaintiff was a fictitious person and therefore not

capable of bringing the action. Unquote. But not Satan. Satan's real.

So what Hale is saying is that in order to be a victim of a crime

you have to be a real person who exists in the real world and in nature.

So let's continue with Hale in Pleas of the Crown on page 53. Here's where you can

follow along. What the person killed. It must be a person

in rerum naturae. If a woman quick with child take a potion

to kill it and accordingly it is destroyed without being born alive

a great misprison but no felony. But if

born alive and after dies of the potion it is murder. The like if it does of

a stroke given by another in like manner. Council before birth to destroy

it and after the child is born destroyed accordingly the counselor is accessory

to murder. So let's break that down. He's saying a murder

victim must exist in the real world and that if a woman were to take a drug

that ended her pregnancy he calls it a great misprison but no felony.

The great misprison line is his personal feelings

on the woman's actions but he makes it clear that it's not a crime.

He goes on to explain that once someone is born they are a person protected

under the laws. Yeah and you can't murder babies. Killing a newborn is murder.

But a woman ending her pregnancy legally speaking it's not. The dividing line

is birth. There we go. Until then you're not a person. Oh so even the legal

precedent that we're trying to quote is actually not. Making the opposite

point of what he said it does. Okay let's keep going

shall we? Oh that's nice. You fucking dumb piece of shit I fucking

hate this. So let's follow the other quote that

where Alito cites abortion as a great crime. Opening up

Historia Placitorum Canorae History of the Pleas of the Crown by Sir Matthew Hale

page 433 here's a page for you. Oh God. Quote if a woman be quick

or great with child if she take or another give her any

potion to make an abortion or if a man strike her whereby the child

within her is killed it is not murder nor manslaughter by the

laws of England because it is not yet in Rerum Naturae

though it be a great crime and by the judicial law of Moses was punishable with

death nor can it legally be known whether it

were killed or not. So if it is if after such child were born

alive and baptized and after die of the stroke given to the mother

that is not homicide. But if a man procure a woman with a

child to destroy her infant when born and the child is born and the woman

in pursuance of that procurement kill the infant this is murder

in the mother and the procurer is accessory to the murder if

absent and this whether the child were baptized or not unquote. So

again the words great crime the only thing that Alito quotes is

just a piece of editorializing that Hale is doing. Yeah he's like this is

I consider it a great crime but it's actually legally not a crime. It clearly states

quoting again it is not murder nor manslaughter

because the fetus is not yet in the real world because it hasn't

been born yet. Yeah it's I mean which okay. It's very

clear from these texts and other sources they didn't prosecute women

for abortions in 17th century England. So basically

even what you're telling me is we're trying to cite legal

precedent that didn't actually fucking exist. It's all

bullshit. Holy shit. So up until the up until

birth the fetus was part of a woman's body and if she wanted to drink poison to

pregnancy. She fucking could. Hale didn't like it but it wasn't a crime

because for all his faults. Because it's not a fucking baby yet. It's not a human.

Yeah for all his faults Hale doesn't seem to be a guy who ever tried to rewrite the law.

He just was codifying. It's like this is the English common law. This is how we do things

and he kept saying well I don't like this. This woman really shouldn't

do that. It sucks but even he didn't try to change

what the law was. And he wrote it very clearly. It's right there

for anyone to find if they fucking do the reading.

You remember that scene in the Avengers when Tony Stark shows up

asking about the energy from the cube and then everybody

looks at him blankly and he's like am I the only guy who did the reading? This is how I felt.

I'm the only guy I can tell so far at least as far as you guys.

That even fucking bother to read it? That followed the footnotes. They read the opinion.

The whole reason I did this subject was because a bunch of people were like

it's weird that we're citing this old judge.

This old dead fucker. So everybody was pointing out no one questioned what Matthew Hale actually had to say.

They just assumed Matthew Hale sucked so of course his opinions on abortion

sucked. But in fact they were literally

Yeah he thinks that abortion shouldn't

happen. But it's not a crime.

It's part of the woman's body. She can decide.

So the examples given that do constitute a murder charge

all involve the child being born alive and then being killed.

And it's hard. Another reason why that would be.

Women had fucking miscarriages all the time.

Which is the point I'm getting to. All the time. So we all agree that baby murder

is bad and should be illegal right? Yeah baby murder is bad. Matthew Hale agrees. You agree?

That women should be allowed to do things with their bodies.

And not have one good goddamn thing to do with you. That a fetus is not an independent person yet.

So thinking about it from a historical point of view. Hale's thing here makes sense.

Because regardless of their uptight religious beliefs like you exactly like you just said.

How predictable and dangerous pregnancy was. I mean it still is but even then

before modern medicine it was incredibly dangerous. Holy shit it was almost a death sentence.

Like miscarriages and stillbirths happen all the time. Women die in childbirth all the time.

Taking the baby with her happened all the time.

C-sections that were the only way to possibly save the life of the baby that didn't

often work happened all the time. So until the baby

was even out of the womb there was no point in trying to give it legal rights

or recognition under the law. Hale a lot of times they didn't even name their babies

until they were two years old. Oh yeah there's a whole other say because

that's the thing. They're like don't get attached it's probably gonna die. Modern Americans

are very sheltered from how many babies and children used to die.

That's why you had big families because half your kids would probably not make it to adolescence.

Well and I mean my boss, my ex-boss, she was only a good

you know 10-15 years older than I am but

she would talk about women. She was like you guys don't understand even the practice

of having a baby shower before the baby is born

was absolutely ludicrous until almost the 80's

because you know you wanted the baby to be here and born

before you start buying it gifts. But you know

common practice it's made you know childbirth both safer

for the mother and the baby. So it's become more

once you kind of get to that you know close to full term

it's like well you're probably going to have a baby. And then that's the other thing

too like if you actually think about the Roe decision which was the trimester thing and then later

with Planned Parenthood versus Casey they redefine it to fetal viability

meaning once the kid could reasonably exist outside the womb it's no longer

okay to or at least the states are allowed to

then regulate that. That's the first time you can have abortion rules

at the point of pregnancy when this baby could live on its own

meaning could be separated from the mother and live in the real world. So

that's an extension of what Hale actually had to say not

what Justice Alito's bullshit claim is here in this thing.

Well even with this it cites that a fetus in the

womb usually occurs, you know the first movement felt, it's like I'll even

quote this. They call it the quickening, the butterflies. It's 16 to 18 weeks

which still a lot of southern states are trying to cut

it off at 6 before women know they're pregnant.

So even this says that you should at least

give them the first trimester. But this is just simply

a way to overturn that so the states can do whatever they want.

Because states' rights are fucking, ugh.

So basically there we have it. So even when citing

a hyper-religious judge who didn't believe rape victims and hanged old ladies for the

crime of being old, ugly, and cranky, Justice Alito had to

misrepresent English common law in order to achieve the goals of a very modern

conservative political agenda. So even the courts of

300 years ago don't fucking, didn't go with Judge Alito.

He, in other words, he lied. He fucking lied. Oh my god.

And we have the receipts. I literally just showed you. And I can show anyone else.

And what we're left with is this chilling knowledge. As of June

24th, 2022, women in the United States of America have

less reproductive rights than they would have had in 17th century

England. Oh my god.

How you feeling? Oh my god.

I feel a little shocked and a little overwhelmed and I think that

this needs to, like, we probably, if he's going to go

and blatantly misrepresent even just precedent law

for his own fucking, he should be pulled from the bench. I think every single

citation and thing he's made and every ruling he's ever made needs to be

heavily scrutinized because he apparently is, he's like, I feel like I'm the

teacher who's grading a term paper and I caught a student just being full of

shit and lying about their sources. Like, this is bad, this is like bad

for, you know, bachelor degree or associate's degree level

shit. It's, and the fact that he pulled those quotes so specifically means he

knows very well that he's lying. Like, he had to pull those two

words out of the block of text that I showed you and that was the only

two that he could, that he could possibly do it and he took the guy's personal feelings

and then pretended to everyone else that those were matters of law when

they were not. Oh, that's some serious

fuckery. So, yeah. Holy shit,

that's more fuckery than the fucking extra nipples. Yeah.

So, that's it. Jesus Christ. We are now done with Sir Matthew Hale and the

United States Supreme Court and all of that.

So, let's just all take the rest of the day and enjoy whatever method

of intoxication or relaxation you require. Holy shit.

Whether it's booze or weed or punching a brick wall until your hands are bloody.

You know, if you want to, you know, raise hell in protest and...

Yeah, I mean, honestly, it's like I don't have a law degree but I'm

sure someone does. Well, here's the nasty part about this is that

these are lifetime appointments and what he says goes, there's no, the only mechanism

Impeach? We can impeach him? The only way we can overturn this ruling is

with a future ruling which would need a different court

or he would have to be impeached. And he should be. But no one

we don't do it. I think we've impeached one Supreme Court justice in the early

You know what? I'm really tired of hearing what we haven't done. Why don't we

fucking focus on what we should be doing. I'm with you or maybe this whole system

This whole system sucks and we need term limits. Term limits. Hey, let's fucking

quote this guy about some term limit motherfuckers. So, you know.

And how we shouldn't let decrepit old people run our fucking

run the entire show. Retire, assholes.

If you want to protest, make your voices heard

or redacted, redacted to a federal court building then you know

I wouldn't blame you. So anyway

thank you listeners for listening, following us through this nightmare. So

yeah, if you feel like it or care about anything anymore

you can go to ChainsideHistory.com where I'm going to have a follow up

piece that's written in a more serious style to make this point

show these documents and make the case that I just made that the Supreme Court

lied. Yeah, they lied and they need to be impeached. I lied about what it was to make their case.

So yeah, ChainsideHistory.com. We are now going

to drink and smoke heavily. Oh, good lord and I need it.