United States ex rel. Miner v. Erickson

I am unaware of another case where the law has shown such calloused insensitivity to the denial of basic constitutional rights of an individual. The proceedings in this case call to mind a critical observation by Mr. Justice Harlan made in another era: “ ‘It is not the words of the law but the internal sense of it that makes the law: the letter of the law is the body; the sense and reason of the law is the soul.’ ” Civil Rights *632Cases, 109 U.S. 3, 26, 3 S.Ct. 18, 33, 27 L. Ed. 835 (1883) (dissenting opinion). If ever the “substance and spirit of the law” were rendered subordinate to legal…