But for their right to judge of the law, and the justice of the law,
juries would be no protection to an accused person, even as to
matters of fact; for, if the government can dictate to a jury any law
whatever, in a criminal case, it can certainly dictate to them the
laws of evidence. That is, it can dictate what evidence is
admissible, and what inadmissible, and also what force or weight
is to be given to the evidence admitted. And if the government can
thus dictate to a jury the laws of evidence, it can not only make it
necessary for them to convict on a partial exhibition of the
evidence rightfully pertaining to the case, but it can even require
them to convict on any evidence whatever that it pleases to offer
them.
That the rights and duties of jurors must necessarily be such as are
here claimed for them, will be evident when it is considered what
the trial by jury is, and what is its object.
"The trial by jury," then, is a "trial by the country" that is, by the
people as distinguished from a trial by the government.
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