Lysander Spooner

Jurors, on the other hand, are exposed to none of these temptations.

They are not liable to bribery, for they are unknown to the parties until they come into the jury-box.

They can rarely gain either fame, power, or money, by giving erroneous decisions.

The laws of human nature do not permit the supposition that twelve men, taken by lot from the mass of the people, and acting under such circumstances, will all prove dishonest.

It is a supposable case that they may not be sufficiently enlightened to know and do their whole duty, in all cases whatsoever; but that they should all prove dishonest, is not within the range of probability.

A jury, therefore, insures to us what no other court does that first and indispensable requisite in a judicial tribunal, integrity.

It is alleged that if juries are allowed to judge of the law, they decide the law absolutely; that their decision must necessarily stand, be it right or wrong; and that this power of absolute decision would be dangerous in their hands, by…

For example, it is a power to declare imperatively that a man's property, liberty, or life, shall not be taken from him; but it is not a power to declare imperatively that they shall be taken from him.

Magna Carta does not provide that the judgments of the peers shall be executed; but only that no other than their judgments shall ever be executed, so far as to take a party's goods, rights, or person, thereon.

So that practically a jury has no absolute power to take a party's goods, rights, or person.

It is only prohibited from doing anything (that is, from taking a party's goods, rights, or person) unless a jury have first adjudged it to be done.

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.