This is the mode in which the trial by jury operates to prevent the government from falling into the hands of a party, or a faction, and to keep it within such limits as all, or substantially all, the people are agreed that it may occupy.
Spooner describes the jury's role in preventing government overreach and maintaining justice.
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It would also be making them consent to what they regard as the destruction of their own rights.
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…
Proud from victory, and with their swords in their hands, would they surrender their liberties to a private man?
The people considered their jurisprudence as a part of their inheritance.