On the record
In other words, in the criminal suit, the jury would be obliged to justify the defendant in resisting a law, which, in the civil suit, they had said he was bound to submit to.
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Lysander Spooner
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gutenberg.orgLysander Spooner: “In other words, in the criminal suit, the jury would be obliged to justify the defendant in resisting a law, which, in…”
Editor's note · Context
Spooner discusses the conflicting obligations juries face in civil versus criminal cases regarding unjust laws.
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More from Lysander Spooner
It was simply, that they would neither convict the innocent, nor acquit the guilty.
It would also be making them consent to what they regard as the destruction of their own rights.
They cannot claim or expect that the whole people shall practise the folly of taking on trust their pretended superior knowledge, and of committing blindly into their hands all their own interests, liberties, and rights, to be disposed of…
Yet the codes of the most celebrated kings are very small, and were little more than compilations of immemorial customs.