Lysander Spooner Quotes About Jury

Quotes about: Jury

• If the jury have no right to judge of the justice of a law of the government, they plainly can do nothing to protect the people against the oppressions of the government; for there are no oppressions which the government may not authorize by law.

  Lysander Spooner

  Government, Law, People

  Lysander Spooner (2004). “An Essay on the Trial by Jury”, p.4, The Minerva Group, Inc.

• There has been no clearer principle of English or American constitutional law than that, in criminal cases, it is not only the power and duty of juries to judge what are the facts, what is the law, and what is the moral intent of the accused; but that it is also their power, and their primary and paramount duty, to judge the justice of the law, and to hold all laws invalid, that are, in their opinion, unjust or oppressive, and find all persons guiltless in violating, or resisting the execution of, such laws.

  Lysander Spooner

  Life, War, Law

• Those who deny the right of a jury to protect an individual in resisting an unjust law of the government, deny him all defence whatsoever against oppression.

  Lysander Spooner

  Government, Law, Unjust

  Lysander Spooner (2004). “An Essay on the Trial by Jury”, p.10, The Minerva Group, Inc.

• But for their right to judge of the law, and the justice of the law, juries would be no protection to an accused person, even as to matters of fact; for, if the government can dictate to a jury any law whatever, in a criminal case, it can certainly dictate to them the laws of evidence.

  Lysander Spooner

  Government, Law, Justice

  Lysander Spooner (2004). “An Essay on the Trial by Jury”, p.1, The Minerva Group, Inc.

• If a jury have not the right to judge between the government and those who disobey its laws, and resist its oppressions, the government is absolute, and the people, legally speaking, are slaves.

  Lysander Spooner

  Government, Law, People

  Lysander Spooner (2004). “An Essay on the Trial by Jury”, p.11, The Minerva Group, Inc.

• The trial by jury is a trial by 'the country,' in contradistinction to a trial by the government. The jurors are drawn by lot from the mass of the people, for the very purpose of having all classes of minds and feelings, that prevail among the people at large, represented in the jury.

  Lysander Spooner

  Country, Government, Class

  Lysander Spooner (1971). “The Collected Works of Lysander Spooner: Legal writings”

• The trial by jury might safely be introduced into a despotic government, if the jury were to exercise no right of judging of the law, or the justice of the law.

  Lysander Spooner

  Exercise, Government, Law

  Lysander Spooner, Charles Shively (1971). “The Collected Works of Lysander Spooner: Anti-slavery writings”

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin