Doth our law judge any man, before it hear him, and know {n} what he doeth?

(n) What the one who is accused has committed.

People's New Testament

7:51 Doth our law judge, etc.? Of course it did not, but for him to say a word in defense of justice brought the charge that he was a follower of the Galilean.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

51. Doth our law, &c.-a very proper, but all too tame rejoinder, and evidently more from pressure of conscience than any design to pronounce positively in the case. "The feebleness of his defense of Jesus has a strong contrast in the fierceness of the rejoinders of the Pharisees" [Webster and Wilkinson].

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

7:40-53 The malice of Christ's enemies is always against reason, and sometimes the staying of it cannot be accounted for. Never any man spake with that wisdom, and power, and grace, that convincing clearness, and that sweetness, wherewith Christ spake. Alas, that many, who are for a time restrained, and who speak highly of the word of Jesus, speedily lose their convictions, and go on in their sins! People are foolishly swayed by outward motives in matters of eternal moment, are willing even to be damned for fashion's sake. As the wisdom of God often chooses things which men despise, so the folly of men commonly despises those whom God has chosen. The Lord brings forward his weak and timid disciples, and sometimes uses them to defeat the designs of his enemies.