If a jury consent, at the dictation of the court, as to either law or evidence, to render a verdict, on the strength of which they have reason to believe that a man's property will be taken from him and given to another, against their own notions of justice, they make themselves morally responsible for the wrong.
Spooner contends that jurors who yield to court pressure and render unjust verdicts are morally culpable for the resulting wrongs.
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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.
In that case the trial is really a trial by the government, and not by the jury.
It would also be making them consent to what they regard as the destruction of their own rights.
Any restriction upon the exercise of this right is a restriction upon his rightful power of providing for, and accomplishing, his own well-being.