Chainsaw History - Part One: Matthew Hale, Dead British Judge v. Women's Rights

Episode Date: March 1, 2023

{ Visit ChainsawHistory.com see full show notes and research links, get access to our full back catalog, check out our bonus content, and support the show with a paid subscription! }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Jamie and Bambi dissect the baffling and infuriating influence of Sir Matthew Hale, a 17th-century English jurist with outdated ideas (even for his time!).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.

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Brought to you by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services AdoptUS Kids and the Ad Council AdoptUS Kids and The Ad Council AdoptUS Kids and the Ad Council AdoptUS Kids and the Ad Council AdoptUS Kids and the Ad Council What do you want to talk about, that the internet that you don't mind them hearing about?

I don't know, honestly, I'm good with just a 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 a mood Now I've never been in a fuck Oprah kind of a mood I mean, you know, or how about a 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 would when she had her book club and then all the blind moms would empty the shelves of whatever she recommended or talked about Yeah, I know and that's how we got we all know about Gillian Flynn and that's great but Oprah sucks, fuck Oprah

Sure, so wait, what the hell, 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? Oh, are we gonna 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 just here for the lulls 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 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 hasn'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 51% of them So you might remember a little case ruled on last year by the United States Supreme Court Dobs 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 Despite assurances during their Senate confirmation hearings that they considered Roe's settled law

Justice's 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 doing as many rights as I did the day before

Suddenly you found the 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 They also used to burn witches at the stake or just hang them You know what? We're gonna be talking about some of that I'm sure we are Spoiler alert

Spoiler For part two In his majority opinion for the high court official on June 24th, 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 up hold Roe since the court is supposed to follow prior decisions in most instances It's a legal precept called starry decisis The idea that in most cases you follow precedent That's sort of the foundation of all law So what he's saying is Well, Roe was voted on

and because this 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 in 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 going by the laws of this country but by a previous one? Yes, so Oh fuck him so hard So just listen, we're just getting started

Oh god So Alito writes this is in the majority opinion which was published last year that 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 quickening i.e. the first felt movement of the fetus and 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 and a great misprison unquote Just last year 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 300 years ago they didn't even know about germs But it's sort of like understanding that our country started as British colonies so the common law of England was the basis for even modern American law

but you're about to see so 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 Louis Pasteur 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 the idea is you treat a doctor who kills a patient doing an abortion differently

so if 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 gave you an abortion drug that killed you that would be treated potentially as a crime

so that's kind of Alito's reasoning here that automatically means abortions are categorized differently than other medical procedures in his view A physician performing an abortion would be guilty of a crime precisely because his aim was an unlawful one So in the opinion that stripped basic rights

from roughly 167 million people just as Alito cited Sir Matthew Hale no less than 8 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 begin 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 We should just end the show right there because it's patently obvious However, we're going to do the work We're going to have to talk about this asshole 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, because there's still a possibility I could get pregnant and possibly die from it Regardless of that, then why are only old white men the ones making these laws

in the first place? Your argument has just defeated itself Shut the fuck up. Alright, so now let's learn who this guy, Matthew Hale is and where actually it was because he's been dead longer than America has been, I think. Matthew Hale arrived bloody and screaming out of a woman's vagina on November 1st, 1609

in Gloucestershire, England How has she been in abortion? Yeah, well, you're going to hear that this is, once again, this is another way he wants to make it illegal because his parents were full of regret This is another one of these figures that will be complicated

I'm so sad So, we're going by basically this guy died in the late 1600s 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 unquote. So, in other words his family was Nouveau Riche

not blue blooded, he had 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 really well set up 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 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 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

like, you know, lawyers like they do now specifically what he wrote about that bothered him was a practice called giving color in pleadings and basically that was about property inheritance and it was like rich assholes could basically petition

a judge over matters of law without needing to worry about pesky facts and then they would really say well, I am Lord so and so and I have this claim as 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 Bob Hale felt like well, no, the facts should always matter the truth actually is important and that's kind of bullshit and since he was, and again he had some money but 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 with his legal footsteps so if he really hated being a lawyer

it's that much, why and also when you understand how young he died too so this is the thing he thought about when his kid was like born yeah, I want him to be a lawyer so Robert Hale Jr. was known for his Christian charity as it seems he really took Jesus' 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 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 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 Poyntz we don't know much about her other than she was from a wealthy 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 an only child

was an orphan at age five okay but wealthy very wealthy well you definitely got some money now if Bob Hale had kept working as a hoity-toity lawyer, had been a little less generous to the local poor

and set up for life as like a trust fund kid but much of the family fortune was gone leaving only 100 pounds per year minus 20 pounds per year to be given to the poor of their local district in Gloucestershire so you can't exactly convert this

but the best estimate I could find that would be about somewhere around 20 grand a year in terms of 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 you would need a job in order to like be well set up

you know who else needs a job me but yeah we know what time it is oh this is the part where we like get advertisements yay okay and now we're gonna sell you stuff do you know what this is about

not lots of people that sound says it's morning again with a good day ahead but of course that doesn't mean every morning for now and then most all of us wake up feeling dull and loggy because we need a laxative and that's when another sound is so welcome yes that's the sparkling sound of sal

hepatica in a glass of water sal hepatica unlike slow acting laxatives a sparkling glass of sal hepatica when you get up brings quick gentle relief usually within an hour that means you don't have to feel dull and loggy all day waiting until night to take the laxative

you need it in the morning and if at the same time you're troubled with excess gastric acidity sal hepatica helps sweeten your stomach so keep a bottle of sal hepatica handy then anytime you need a laxative morning noon or night see how much faster you feel better thanks to gentle speedies sal

hepatica and we're back and we're back and we're talking about Matthew Hale little orphan getting a roughly about 20 grand a year five years old for his care and support now apparently the Hale side of the family was not particularly interested

in little orphan Maddie because only two relatives from his mother's side fought over custody and ultimately it was a cousin named Anthony Kingsgate that took over charge of the little boy and saw it was education as laid out by dead Bob so I think the next sentence

dead dad 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 Magdalene 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 it for the kid to become

a Puritan preacher that was he didn't he didn't go for the lawyer thing he's like no we're gonna raise you to be oh Puritan so the most tight religious guy in the world oh oh this is where witch trials come in I see now and 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 he actually was a very influential 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 exactly what would and their shoes what would Obadiah Sedgwick have taught at Hogwarts oh god

transphobia I never moving right along 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 it was coming for his soul a vagina no he does now here's one thing I will say I'll break it out of my my script for a second because his biographer doesn't even

really mention it it's not important Matthew Hill 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 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'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 I'm sure they had sex under the Christmas tree once a year or whatever I don't know but that's now 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 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

like every nerd I know 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 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 this is the person 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 gentlemen's sports such as fencing and shooting

and of course you know his grandfather was a famous clothes dude so it makes sense he's 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 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 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 he's like you 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 perform 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 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 for sooths verily I am so keen with the blade that if thou can't strike me even once I shall give thy bitch ass a house so it's like he thought he was all he thought

he was hot shit he was like I'll bet you this house you can't and then this guy owns him so instead he reframes it he's like this was a lesson in humility you know that I crafted myself this 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 Tudor 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 put a spear in my hand I'm 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 a mat 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 and battle

in the name of Protestant Jesus and instead to study to become an attorney setting us up for the rest of this so it would have just been better for him to go die in a war he could have just kind of f**king piked to the chest

shot with an English long bow see I'm typically against wars but musket fire to the face I would have been real grateful for this guy not to be around him so on November 8th 1629, barely 20 years old Matt was admitted to the Lincoln's Inn

so in 17th century there were four Inns 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 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 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

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 dressing down never drinking so he shrub and he sucks and he's lame he decided his life would focus entirely

on his faith and the law so and for Jesus for 36 years and 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

hundreds of years later we get to know how this guy organizes day Roman numeral 1 to lift up the heart to God in thankfulness for renewing my life Roman numeral 2 to renew my covenant with God in Christ 1. by renewed acts of faith

receiving Christ and rejoicing in the height of that relation of being one of his people doing him allegiance Roman numeral 3 adoration and prayer Roman numeral 4 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 Lichitis 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'll 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 don't eat or drink too much just what you need he had a rule of no games quote if given to covetness or passion unquote in other words nothing 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 in vainful lustful faults fly from thyself rather than entertain these

don't touch thyself watch not thine dick to let thysolitary thoughts be profitable view the evidences of thys salvation the state of thys soul the coming of Christ by own mortality it will make the humble and watchful

unquote 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 etc etc etc would you ever invite this guy to a party? God no

I don't think you should let that guy out of the house he seems dangerous that's like he said this a little unhinged but you know so much 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 trying to get you on Matthew Hale's side fuck that guy so he's now young noy

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 have already noticed this pattern we talked about how he

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

or at least think about a boob or an ankle or whatever so he's not drinking he's not going to play anymore and for a while he dressed in fancy clothes and then he made the decision that's not the Puritan way you're supposed to be simple and humble and all that which looks 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 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's a fucking slob he looked like shit, he looked like pig pen from the Peanuts cartoons

flies following around 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 to 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 draper so that's where you'd purchase the whole like bolts of cloth and then a tailor would, or a cutter would then cut the suits didn't they have cloth? that was another thing so Hale was purchasing cloth to get suits and stuff made and the dude offered

to give Hale the cloth now at no cost if he had promised to give him 100 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

staying there and working and studying whatever else is having fun he's got no life, no interest cause 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 dude 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 20s constantly on the lookout for older successful mentors Matt found an expert in legal history and 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 Wilvers and other subjects including arithmetic, algebra, philosophy, physics, anatomy, surgery, ancient history and chronology all that sounds like so much fun but you know what's more fun

oh shit we're gonna go to ads? 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 all

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 it was never idle after dining he would read or study not wanting to

waste a single moment with simple pleasure or relaxation it's the most Puritan thing ever you just gotta 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 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 hard 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 you're kicking on the end of a rope buddy yeah I guess you shouldn't have done that now he believed in swift justice and 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 reasoned you know that's actually not yeah except for I don't believe in capital punishment but you know in this case under this world

that seemed like the best thing to do was fuck that guy I guess later on the judicial circuit Matt got pissed when a local sheriff abuses authority to fuck with the jury of an important trial so this guy 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 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 and this is a false king this is just some dude sitting on the throne

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 plotting along and practicing law without taking hard sides he didn't want to get himself in trouble

he wanted to make money from came from whoever was sitting there on the on the big chair so now he's middle aged and Matt was chosen for parliament during a time when there was no House of Lords so he's going to the House of Commons

and there were two primary parties that were going for dominance at the time so one was called the enthusiast and these are the people who wanted to 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 and 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 into the Tower of London and burn all of the records let's just like wipe this slate clean let's just

there's a lot of ugly stuff in English history and let's just burn it all and Matt was saying that's a terrible idea yeah you can't just erase history he's like how about we don't do that and Matt is 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 so like they sent him official mourning robes and here's the instructions of what you're supposed to do to probably mourn the protector

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 an inherited throne and he's not royalty that's not how this works that's like that's false nepotism yeah that's very

different from these made up families trees that are 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 II 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 he was so awesome

that they appointed him and very quickly Charles appointed him knight of the shire from the county of Gloucestershire that also sounds very hoveted so he's officially Sir Matthew Hale at this point now he's in mid 40s and he used this position to help craft

and pass the active indemnity which essentially pardoned 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 let's not tear into each other and have it all about

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 this second episode takes place before we get there 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 down 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 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 on it the same so these precedents are real and that's one of the reasons why he's so revered in legal circles which is fine

that part's fine 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

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 in 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

okay as he settled into later life Matt became increasingly uncompromising as opposed to how chill he was before oh lord 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 bribe good day sir

this is a meat bribe and so literally the guy's like no no no I only give away the stuff from my forest I do not sell it I am a gentleman and they fought over it 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 had been fired for some offense and instead gave the guy a sack of money and sent him on his way without the pink slip that seems pretty cool

that's nice he tried to follow his father's example and he was generous to the less fortunate you make him donations to the poor and all that and all that's fine and Matt became obsessed over religious disputes within Protestant sex and wished there were more laws that could let him publish offenders

aka Catholics he publicly declared for the church of England of course he did 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 try to be science and philosophy it describes the great flood and speculates what the anti-diluvian world may have been like

and then on May 18th 1671 when our hero survey says 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 the highest royally appointed judge position in the land like the Attorney General of the King okay so it's a big deal big deal because in his early 60s 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 Conorai 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 incited 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 inciting this boy Matthew Hale oh my goodness do we know where he's buried? I'd like to spit on him

yeah we can go can we take a chainsaw and street 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 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

dropsy was like old timey for edema just like swelling of the tissues so like my wife who worked so did he die slowly and painfully? yeah it was bad he died 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 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 hill wishes he'd spent less time working and more time praying he was in a 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 he may seem to make some fair rulings and was generous in some ways like like I said you know every time 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 because fuck you yeah so his sycophantic biographer so the guy who 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 employment 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 because then you're just property anyway so once again we're gonna go ahead we're gonna know we've done his biography and so who this guy was we're gonna 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 that when we talked about

Istoria 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 then it sounds a little young but to his credit 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 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 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 doesn't 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 half given up herself in this kind under her husband which she cannot retract unquote granted she wasn't even allowed to pick her own husband

her parents did that for her yeah 90% of the time that's how that works very clearly stated a wife cannot be raped by a husband unfortunately those views were pretty much in line with the standard beliefs of the time so it wasn't like 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 does not write that it's okay for a husband to quote prostitute her to a rape kind of quote 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 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 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 a woman is abducted or threatened in some way and forced into this situation

yeah it doesn't have to be legally held up then the guy rapes her and he's like well no that's my wife and that's not a thing the marriage we're gonna annul your marriage and then you're going to hang now so that 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 perfectly legal that was normal he was talking about an actual abductions there was a legitimate case

that was cited in the book where some important woman had gotten abducted or someri raped by her abductor and then there was a literal act of parliament to undo the marriage in order so that that guy could be executed for this crime and so Hale made the point

you don't even have to do an act of parliament we can just literally any Christian court can annul a marriage in those circumstances but once again if you're married 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

quote so in other words this was a property crime and the wife was part of the stolen goods that were messed with oh you 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

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or cosmetic counter they come in 10 and 60 cent jars start using these delightful and effective beauty creams today okay we're back oh boy having fun talking about rape and sexual assault and Sir Matthew Hale

oh yeah all of this sucks alright so here's an interesting point I'm having so much fun now I'm gonna throw another name at you that might ring a bell but I won't be surprised if you don't instantly recognize it the name is Todd Akin it's okay so it's not surprising

he is dead now he was a former former member of the House of Representatives in the great state of Missouri back in 2012 he made some headlines because he was a super pro-life dude and he he was voicing

his opposition to abortion even in the most extreme cases for example rape victims cases of rape and incest Akin 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 this Akin is saying if it's pregnant it wasn't a rape if the woman got pregnant because that's apparently how biology works oh yeah because we can just

force a baby away well guess what? Matthew Hale disagrees with Akin he uses a Latin phrase I'm not even gonna try to pronounce but it translates into 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 it's worse it's terrible when the 300 year old terrible person has a more reasonable thing than

the dude from Missouri but Todd Akin we can at least say this about him he's dead 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 under the influence

none of those things are a thing 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 that sucks obviously

I don't believe any of the things I just said um 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 haulage was wearing and judge her thusly and that's just sort of like the gross you know judging the victim instead of the

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 because that's how biology works too yeah 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 debt 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 once and 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 happens there needs to be other gross and this is before there's any kind of real physical evidence other than like bruising it just literally has to be bruising and

they would let like these midwives coming 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 matter literally right after I graduated high school when that was the last state I forget which one it was the last holdout it was probably like Mississippi I saw Louisiana

alright and here's the here's a doozy in the Fordham Urban Law Journal volume 4 for number 2 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 prosecute tricks credibility to the nature of the crime charge is no longer mandatory discretionary use is 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 he's already convicted he's trying to get it overturned and you always have to have a legal reasoning for why the original 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 okay now I'm happy to say 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 oh god oh god the bitches be lying president and that's it for part one 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 said a state religion and a king and that was where all the legal authority derived from but we're supposed to care what 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 and we'll talk about how a certain Supreme Court justice is a real lifeline piece of shit oh well 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 we appreciate you and thank you for checking us out for two years we have defended a forest

in south Atlanta from those intent on destroying it this is the wilowney forest those who want to destroy it intend to build a 90 million dollar police training facility with roads to practice high speed chases and a mock city

to practice raids explosive testing crowd control and other tactics of urban warfare in response we have protested petitioned put our bodies on the line

and put pressure on cop city construction companies and funders the climate crisis is already here all across the world people are fighting back for the protection of their land water their local ecosystems the police trained in cop city will be used

to brutally suppress the movements we need to wage these battles now and in the years to come the struggle for life on earth and the struggle to prevent the expansion of the police state are one and the same this is not just a local struggle with media attention on the rise

city officials are scrambling to control the narrative these individuals meant harm to the country many of them don't even live in atlanta or in the state of georgia they have fabricated domestic terrorism charges and they have done this precisely because the movement is strong

the police murder of tortugita and the ensuing cover up could have chilled the movement but instead it has only grown and spread together we will stand up for the forest for the trees and the animals that live in it and for each other wherever you are we need you here

from march 4th through 11th for a week of action in the willowney forest cop city will never be built willowney forest is and will always remain a public park