If the jury, in this
civil suit, are bound to hold the law obligatory, they render a
judgment in favor of B, that he be put in possession of the
property; thereby declaring that A is bound to submit to a law
depriving him of his property. But when the execution of that
judgment comes to be attempted that is, when the sheriff comes
to take the property for the purpose of delivering it to B A
acting, as he has a natural right to do, in defence of his
property, resists and kills the sheriff. He is thereupon indicted
for murder. On this trial his plea is, that in killing the
sheriff, he was simply exercising his natural right of defending
his property against an unjust law. The jury, not being bound, in
a criminal case, by the authority of an unjust law, judge the act
on its merits, and acquit the defendant thus declaring that he
was not bound to submit to the same law which the jury, in the
civil suit, had, by their judgment, declared that he was bound to
submit to.
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