On the record
In Virginia, the jurors are selected by the sheriffs; but the sheriff's are appointed by the governor of the state, and that is enough to make the juries illegal.
Said by
Lysander Spooner
Source
gutenberg.orgLysander Spooner: “In Virginia, the jurors are selected by the sheriffs; but the sheriff's are appointed by the governor of the state, and…”
Editor's note · Context
Spooner points out that the appointment of jurors by sheriffs, who are politically appointed, undermines the legality of juries.
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More from Lysander Spooner
And yet these reasons, which are really no reasons at all, are the only ones, so far as I know, that have ever been offered for this absurd and brutal doctrine.
It would also be making them consent to what they regard as the destruction of their own rights.
Therefore all their laws, as they call them,--that is, all the laws of their own making,--have no color of authority or obligation.
It is also sheer impudence, on their part, to assume that their commands are at all necessary to teach other men what is, and what is not, justice.