When the utmost practicable impartiality is attained on the part of the whole twelve, they are sworn to the observance of justice; and their unanimous concurrence is then held to be necessary to remove that reasonable doubt, which, unremoved, would forbid the government to lay its hand on its victim.
Spooner asserts that a unanimous jury is essential to ensure that justice is served without reasonable doubt.
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The will, or the pretended will, of the majority, is the last lurking place of tyranny at the present day.
There is no more absurdity in giving a jury a veto upon the laws, than there is in giving a veto to each of these other tribunals.
But there is no reason why a judge should have the power of punishing, for contempt, any more than for any other offence.
In nearly or quite all the States of the United States the juries are illegal, for one or the other of the same reasons that make the juries in England illegal.