From this cause alone, if there were no
other, there has not been a legal jury in a county court in
England, for more than five hundred years.
In nearly or quite all the States of the United States the juries
are illegal, for one or the other of the same reasons that make
the juries in England illegal.
In order that the juries in the United States may be legal that
is, in accordance with the principles of the common law it is
necessary that every adult male member of the state should have
his name in the jury box, or be eligible as a juror. Yet this is
the case in hardly a single state.
In New Jersey, Maryland, North Carolina, Tennessee, and
Mississippi, the jurors are required to be freeholders. But this
requirement is illegal, for the reason that the term freeholder,
in this country, has no meaning analogous to the meaning it had in
the ancient common law.
In Arkansas, Missouri, Indiana, and Alabama, jurors are required
to be "freeholders or householders.
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