THE FREE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
CHAPTER IX. THE CRIMINAL INTENT
CHAPTER X. MORAL CONSIDERATIONS FOR JURORS
CHAPTER XI. AUTHORITY OF MAGNA CARTA
CHAPTER XII. LIMITATIONS IMPOSED UPON THE
MAJORITY BY THE TRIAL BY JURY
APPENDIX TAXATION
TRIAL BY JURY
CHAPTER I
THE RIGHT OF JURIES TO JUDGE OF THE JUSTICE OF LAWS
SECTION I.
FOR more than six hundred years that is, since Magna Carta, in
1215 there has been no clearer principle of English or American
constitutional law, than that, in criminal cases, it is not only the
right and duty of juries to judge what are the facts, what is the law,
and what was the moral intent of the accused; but that it is also
their right, and their primary and paramount duty, to judge of the
justice of the law, and to hold all laws invalid, that are, in their
opinion, unjust or oppressive, and all persons guiltless in violating,
or resisting the execution of, such laws.
Unless such be the right and duty of jurors, it is plain that, instead
of juries being a "palladium of liberty" a barrier against the tyranny
and oppression of the government they are really mere tools in its
hands, for carrying into execution any injustice and oppression it
may desire to have executed.
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