The question here arises, Whether the barons and people intended that those peers (the jury) should be mere puppets in the hands of the king, exercising no opinion of their own as to the intrinsic merits of the accusations they should try, or the justice of the laws they should be called on to enforce?
Spooner questions whether juries were meant to be independent judges or mere instruments of the king's will, highlighting the importance of jury autonomy.
Share
More from Lysander Spooner
In this manner all unjust laws are established, and made operative against the rights of the people.
They are every day committing errors, which would be crimes, but for their ignorance of the law.
Why should they not have such an administration of justice as they desire, and can understand?
The will, or the pretended will, of the majority, is the last lurking place of tyranny at the present day.