This example is sufficient to show that the very pith of the trial by jury, as a safeguard to liberty, consists in the jurors being taken indiscriminately from the whole people, and in their right to hold invalid all laws which they think unjust.
Spooner emphasizes that the essence of a jury's role in safeguarding liberty lies in its composition from the general populace.
Share
More from Lysander Spooner
Any restriction upon the exercise of this right is a restriction upon his rightful power of providing for, and accomplishing, his own well-being.
They are every day committing errors, which would be crimes, but for their ignorance of the law.
The will, or the pretended will, of the majority, is the last lurking place of tyranny at the present day.
They were even allowed to grant pardon to criminals, and to correct by their clemency the rigors of justice.