Of course, there can be no legality in such juries as these; but only in juries to which every free or natural born adult male Englishman is eligible.
Lysander Spooner: “Of course, there can be no legality in such juries as these; but only in juries to which every free or natural born…”
Editor's note · Context
Spooner argues that only juries composed of eligible freemen can be considered legal.
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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…
One answer is, that this power, which juries have of judging of the law, is not a power of absolute decision in all cases.
They cannot claim or expect that the whole people shall practise the folly of taking on trust their pretended superior knowledge, and of committing blindly into their hands all their own interests, liberties, and rights, to be disposed of…
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.