All this implies that the moral quality of the offence was to be judged of at the rial, and that the punishment was to be fixed by the discretion of the peers, or jury, and not by any such unvarying rule as a common law rule would be.
Spooner suggests that moral judgments and punishments should be determined by the jury's discretion.
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Yet the codes of the most celebrated kings are very small, and were little more than compilations of immemorial customs.
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.
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…
The people are no more arrayed against themselves, when a jury puts its veto upon a statute, which the other tribunals have sanctioned, than they are when the same veto is exercised by the representatives, the senate, the executive, or the…