If the government may decide who may, and who may not, be jurors, it will of course select only its partisans, and those friendly to its measures.
Lysander Spooner: “If the government may decide who may, and who may not, be jurors, it will of course select only its partisans, and those…”
Editor's note · Context
Spooner warns that if the government controls jury selection, it will favor its own allies, undermining justice.
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In short, they acknowledge themselves hostes humani generis: enemies of the human race.
For all these reasons, they are not only modest and sensible, but really frank, honest, and honorable villains, contrasted with these courts of injustice, and the lawmakers by whom these courts are established.
When they have once taken our money, they have the decency to get out of our sight as soon as possible; they do not persist in following us, and robbing us, again and again, so long as we produce anything that they can take from us.
They do not tell us of the almshouses, hospitals, schools, churches, etc., which, out of the purest charity and benevolence, they maintain for our benefit, out of the money they take from us.