TRIAL BY JURY by: Lysander Spooner
THE RIGHT OF JURIES TO JUDGE OF THE LAWS
For more than 600 years-that is, since Magna Carta, in 1215-there has been no clear 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.
