"
St. 13 .Edward I., ch. 38. (1285.)
The next invasion of the common law, in this particular, was made
in 1414, about two hundred years after Magna Carta, when it was
enacted:
"That no person shall be admitted to pass in any inquest upon
trial of the death of a man, nor in any inquest betwixt party and
party in plea real, nor in plea personal, whereof the debt or the
damage declared amount to forty marks, if the same person have
not lands or tenements of the yearly value of forty shillings above
all charges of the same." 2 Henry V., st. 2, ch. 3. (1414.)
Other statutes on this subject of the property qualifications of
jurors, are given in the note. [4]
From these statutes it will be seen that, since 1285, seventy
years after Magna Carta, the common law right of all free British
subjects to eligibility as jurors has been abolished, and the
qualifications of jurors have been made a subject of arbitrary
legislation. In other words, the government has usurped the
authority of selecting the jurors that were to sit in judgment
upon its own acts.
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