On the record
Any infringement or restriction of the common law right of the whole body of the freemen of the kingdom to eligibility as jurors, was legally an abolition of the trial by jury itself.
Said by
Lysander Spooner
Source
gutenberg.orgLysander Spooner: “Any infringement or restriction of the common law right of the whole body of the freemen of the kingdom to eligibility…”
Editor's note · Context
Spooner argues that any limitation on who can serve as a juror undermines the very concept of trial by jury.
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More from Lysander Spooner
And the right is practically established only when and because the government, no longer exists to call it in question.
And nobody is bound to take the least notice of them, unless it be to trample them under foot, as usurpations.
Yet the codes of the most celebrated kings are very small, and were little more than compilations of immemorial customs.
The people considered their jurisprudence as a part of their inheritance.