This page was last updated on July 29, 1999
Our founding fathers were born with, lived with and died with the right to counsel for the middle class and the poor. When they wrote our first laws they adopted the right to free counsel granted under 11 Henry 7, chapter 12. Today our lawyers and judges claim that you no longer have the right! Isn't it strange that the right to counsel has simply disappeared. There is no record of any court overruling the right, no record of a legislature removing the right, and no record of anyone ever denying the right based on 11 Henry 7, chapter 12. In fact all of the records that mention the right claim that it is a basic right of the people. So where did it go? ____________________________________________ From: Vol. 36 HARVARD LAW REVIEW , PAGE 361 "A man who is poor, friendless, and a stranger has some small claim against a great corporation. He starts suit in one of our state courts. The defendant demands security for costs. The costs really mean nothing to it. The claim itself means little more. But this is an easy way to get rid of the case. The plaintiff has no security to give. What happens to his suit. When a situation like this arose twenty-three or twenty four hundred years ago under the Roman republic, the poor man was protected. The law required of him only such security as he could furnish. When an almost identical situation arose eight hundred years ago under Henry I of England, it is said that the ordinance requiring security was mitigated for the poor by a provision "that those who had not sufficient present security should pledge their faith to make satisfaction to the utmost of their power." .......
"The statute 11 Henry VII, c. 12 (1495), which covered only actions and suits at law, is usually quoted as the foundation of those proceedings technically described as being in forma pauperis. In a sense, perhaps, it is true, but we must go much further back to tract the growth of the idea and appreciate the acts's historical setting. Nor did the older non-statutory proceedings soon lose their practical effect. For example, at a much later time when the common law courts had denied that they possessed statutory power to let defendants proceed in forma pauperis, chancery was able to relieve respondents as well as complainants, because the act of 1495, neither gave nor restricted its powers.
______________________________________________
Those interested in the right to counsel will find the above law review to be informative. It is clear from the article that the right to counsel and the right to be free from cost is an ancient right of the people at least 2500 years old. To learn more about the right to counsel of the middle class and poor, see http://home.swbell.net/truelaw
1, This is not an imaginary situation. See Campbell v. Chicago, etc., Ry.Co 23 Wis. 490 (1868). 2. Hunter, Roman Law, 3 ed. 17, 968. Cooper Inst of Justinian, appendix I. P 656 (1812) Under these Roman laws (the Twelve Tables) security required was not for costs byt for appearance at trial, and was exacted from the defendant. Lane v. Townsend, 14 Fed. Cas (no. 8054), 1087, 1082 et seq. (1835), describes a Roman law suit 3. Mirror of Justices, 7 Seld. Soc. 14 (1893) 4, Philipe v. Baker, 1 Carr. & Payne, 533 (1824) ; Everson v. Matthew, 3 W.R. 159 (1855); Oldfield v Cobbett, 1 Phil 613