On the record
Pecuniary punishments were the most common punishments at that day, and the foregoing provisions of Magna Carta show that the amount of those punishments was to be fixed by the jury.
Said by
Lysander Spooner
Source
gutenberg.orgLysander Spooner: “Pecuniary punishments were the most common punishments at that day, and the foregoing provisions of Magna Carta show…”
Editor's note · Context
Spooner notes that during his time, juries were responsible for determining the amount of pecuniary punishments.
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Therefore all their laws, as they call them,--that is, all the laws of their own making,--have no color of authority or obligation.
A man has a natural right to enforce his own rights and redress his own wrongs.
Yet the codes of the most celebrated kings are very small, and were little more than compilations of immemorial customs.
The answer is, that they are as reliable for that purpose as are the majority; they are as much presumed to have associated, and are as likely to have associated, for that object, as are the majority; and they have as much interest in such…