It is a supposable case that they may not be
sufficiently enlightened to know and do their whole duty, in all
cases whatsoever; but that they should all prove dishonest, is not
within the range of probability. A jury, therefore, insures to us
what no other court does that first and indispensable requisite
in a judicial tribunal, integrity.
4. It is alleged that if juries are allowed to judge of the law,
they decide the law absolutely; that their decision must
necessarily stand, be it right or wrong; and that this power of
absolute decision would be dangerous in their hands, by reason of
their ignorance of the law.
One answer is, that this power, which juries have of judging of
the law, is not a power of absolute decision in all cases. For
example, it is a power to declare imperatively that a man's
property, liberty, or life, shall not be taken from him; but it is
not a power to declare imperatively that they shall be taken from
him.
Magna Carta does not provide that the judgments of the peers shall
be executed; but only that no other than their judgments shall
ever be executed, so far as to take a party's goods, rights, or
person, thereon.
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