They only, not the judges, are sworn to search diligently to find out all treasons, &c;., within their charge, and they must and ought to use their own discretion in the way and manner of their inquiry.
Lysander Spooner
The Public Record
Lysander Spooner was an American abolitionist, entrepreneur, lawyer, essayist, natural rights legal theorist, pamphleteer, political philosopher, and writer often associated with the Boston anarchist tradition.
gutenberg.org
No directions can legally be imposed upon there by any court or judges; an honest jury will thankfully accept good advice from judges, as their assistants; but they are bound by their oaths to present the truth, the whole truth, and…
Neither can they, without breach of that oath, resign their consciences, or blindly submit to the dictates of others; and therefore ought to receive or reject such advices, as they judge them good or bad. * *Nothing can be more plain and…
The language wherein the oath is penned is known and understood by every man, and the words in it have the same signification as they have wheresoever else they are used.
The judges, without assuming to themselves a legislative power, cannot put a new sense upon them, other than according to their genuine, common meaning.
They cannot magisterially impose their opinions upon the jury, and make them forsake the direct words of their oath, to pursue their glosses.
What is here said so plainly and forcibly of the oath and obligations of grand juries, is equally applicable to the oath and obligations of petit juries.
If the king (the legislative power) had had authority to fix the punishments of these offences imperatively, he would naturally have said these offenders shall be amerced, and shall suffer judgment of the pillory and tumbrel, instead of…
There are obvious reasons why they might choose to consult the king, and obtain his approbation of the sentence they were about to impose, without supposing any legal necessity for their so doing.
But the same principle, on this point, that applies to a peer of the realm, applies to every freeman.
The only difference between the two is, that the peers of the realm have had influence enough to preserve their constitutional rights; while the constitutional rights of the people have been trampled upon and rendered obsolete by the…
If the authority be vested in the government, the governmnt is absolute, and the people have no liberties except such as the government sees fit to indulge them with.