[2]
Furthemore, it would be absurd and inconsistent to make
a jury paramount to legislation in criminal suits, and
subordinate to it in civil suits; because an individual, by
resisting the execution of a civil judgment, founded upon an
unjust law, could give rise to a criminal suit, in which the jury
would be bound to hold the same law invalid. So that, if an
unjust law were binding upon a jury in civil suits, a defendant,
by resisting the execution of the judgment, could, in effect,
convert the civil action into a criminal one, in which the jury
would be paramount to the same legislation, to which, in the
civil suit, they were subordinate. In other words, in the
criminal suit, the jury would be obliged to justify the defendant
in resisting a law, which, in the civil suit, they had said he
was bound to submit to.
To make this point plain to the most common mind suppose a
law be enacted that the property of A shall be given to B. B
brings a civil action to obtain possession of it.
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