It is absurd, also, to say that jurors have no moral
responsibility for a punishment indicted upon a man against law,
when, at the dictation of a judge as to what the law is, they
have consented to render a verdict against their own opinions of
the law.
It is absurd, too, to say that jurors have no moral
responsibility for the conviction and punishment of an innocent
man, when they consent to render a verdict against him on the
strength of evidence, or laws of evidence, dictated to them by
the court, if any evidence or laws of evidence have been
excluded, which they (the jurors) think ought to have been
admitted in his defence.
It is absurd to say that jurors have no moral responsibility for
rendering a verdict of "guilty" against a man, for an act which
he did not know to be a crime, and in the commission of which,
therefore, he could have had no criminal intent, in obedience to
the instructions of courts that "ignorance of the law (that is,
of crime) excuses no one.
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