Essay on the Trial By Jury | Page 3

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Scanner's Note: I have made two changes in this text. First I have removed the footnotes to the end of each chapter and I have placed note 9 at the end of chapter 6 noting that because of the ratification of the XIX amendment to the Constitution for the United States, August 20, 1920, women were fully enfranchised with all rights of voting and jury service in all states of the Union. Other than the lack of italics and bold in this text and the typos (may they be few) this is the complete first edition text. Let me know of any mistakes you have caught! My email address's for now is [email protected] and [email protected].
David Reed

An Essay on the Trial By Jury By LYSANDER SPOONER
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1852, by LYSANDER SPOONER
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts.
NOTICE TO ENGLISH PUBLISHERS The author claims the copyright of this book in England, on Common Law principles, without regard to acts of parliament; and if the main principle of the book itself be true, viz., that no legislation, in conflict with the Common Law, is of any validity, his claim is a legal one. He forbids any one to reprint the book without his consent.
Stereotyped by HOBART & ROBBINS; New England Type and Stereotype Foundery,BOSTON.
NOTE
This volume, it is presumed by the author, gives what will generally be considered satisfactory evidence, though not all the evidence, of what the Common Law trial by jury really is. In a future volume, if it should be called for, it is designed to corroborate the grounds taken in this; give a concise view of the English constitution; show the unconstitutional character of the existing government in England, and the unconstitutional means by which the trial by jury has been broken down in practice; prove that, neither in England nor the United States, have legislatures ever been invested by the people with any authority to impair the powers, change the oaths, or (with few exceptions) abridge the jurisdiction, of juries, or select jurors on any other than Common Law principles; and, consequently, that, in both countries, legislation is still constitutionally subordinate to the discretion and consciences of Common Law juries, in all cases, both civil and criminal, in which juries sit. The same volume will probably also discuss several political and legal questions, which will naturally assume importance if the trial by jury should be reestablished.

CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
. THE RIGHT OF JURIES TO JUDGE OF THE JUSTICE OF LAWS SECTION 1. SECTION 2.
CHAPTER II
. THE TRIAL BY JURY, AS DEFINED BY MAGNA CARTA SECTION 1. The History Of Magna Carta SECTION 2. The Language Of Magna Carta
CHAPTER III
. ADDITIONAL PROOFS OF THE RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF JURORS. SECTION 1. Weakness of the Regal Authority SECTION 2. The Ancient Common Law Juries Were Mere Courts Of Conscience SECTION 3. The Oaths of Jurors SECTION 4. The Right Of Jurors To Fix The Sentence SECTION 5. The Oaths Of Judges SECTION 6. The Coronation Oath
CHAPTER IV
. THE RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF JURIES IN CIVIL SUITS
CHAPTER V
. OBJECTIONS ANSWERED
CHAPTER VI
. JURIES OF THE PRESENT DAY ILLEGAL
CHAPTER VII
. ILLEGAL JUDGES
CHAPTER VIII
. THE FREE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
CHAPTER IX
. THE CRIMINAL INTENT
CHAPTER X
. MORAL CONSIDERATIONS FOR JURORS
CHAPTER XI
. AUTHORITY OF MAGNA CARTA
CHAPTER XII
. LIMITATIONS IMPOSED UPON THE MAJORITY BY THE TRIAL BY JURY
APPENDIX TAXATION

TRIAL BY JURY
CHAPTER I
THE RIGHT OF JURIES TO JUDGE OF THE JUSTICE OF LAWS
SECTION I.
FOR more than six hundred years that is, since Magna Carta, in 1215 there has been no clearer principle of English or American constitutional law, than that, in criminal cases, it is not only the right and duty of juries to judge what are the facts, what is the law, and what was the moral intent of the accused; but that it is also their right, and their primary and paramount duty, to judge of the justice of the law, and to hold all laws invalid, that are, in their opinion, unjust or oppressive, and all persons guiltless in violating, or resisting the execution of, such laws.
Unless such be the right and duty of jurors, it is plain that, instead of juries being a "palladium of liberty" a