Lysander Spooner: “In the civil suit, the law is declared to be obligatory upon A; in the…”

On the record

In the civil suit, the law is declared to be obligatory upon A; in the criminal suit, the same law is declared to be of no obligation.

Said by

Lysander Spooner

Source

Spooner critiques the contradictory nature of legal obligations in civil versus criminal cases.

More from Lysander Spooner

The people considered their jurisprudence as a part of their inheritance.

It would be a solecism and absurdity in government to allow such consequences as these.

Since Magna Carta, we have evidence showing quite conclusively that all freemen, above the age of twenty-one years, were eligible as jurors.

And nobody is bound to take the least notice of them, unless it be to trample them under foot, as usurpations.

Lysander Spooner: “In the civil suit, the law is declared to be obligatory upon A; in the criminal suit, the same law is declared to be of…”