{"id":5414,"date":"2010-09-16T17:03:47","date_gmt":"2010-09-16T21:03:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=5414"},"modified":"2010-09-16T17:03:47","modified_gmt":"2010-09-16T21:03:47","slug":"qotd-trial-by-jury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2010\/09\/16\/qotd-trial-by-jury\/","title":{"rendered":"QotD: Trial By Jury<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

In 1850 Spooner published A Defence for Fugitive Slaves, Against the Acts of Congress on February 12, 1793 and September 18, 1850<\/em>, where he argued that juries \u201care judges of the law, as well as the fact\u201d and are therefore justified in nullifying federal fugitive slave laws. \u201cNo man can be punished for resisting the execution of any law,\u201d Spooner wrote, \u201cunless the law be so clearly constitutional, as that a jury, taken promiscuously from the mass of the people, will all agree that it is constitutional.\u201d Today we call this radical approach \u201cjury nullification.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two years later, in Trial by Jury<\/em>, Spooner developed his argument in full, expertly tracing the right of jury nullification back to the Magna Carta. \u201cIt is indispensable that the people, or \u2018the country,\u2019 judge of and determine their own liberties against the government,\u201d he wrote. \u201cHow is it possible that juries can do anything to protect the liberties of the people against the government; if they are not allowed to determine what those liberties are?\u201d According to Spooner, it was essential to distinguish between trial by jury<\/em>, which meant trial by the people, chosen by lot, and trial by government<\/em>, which was an illegal usurpation of the people\u2019s power. \u201cIf the government may decide who may, and who may not, be jurors,\u201d he wrote, \u201cit will of course select only its partisans, and those friendly to its measures.\u201d Furthermore, he said, if the government had its way, it \u201cmay also question each person drawn as a juror, as to his sentiments in regard to the particular law involved in each trial\u2026and exclude him if he be found unfavorable to the maintenance of such a law.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, that\u2019s exactly what happens today when potential jurors who oppose the death penalty are prevented from serving on death penalty cases or when those who oppose drug prohibition are excluded from drug cases, thereby stacking the jury in the government\u2019s favor. As Spooner presciently observed, \u201cif the government may dictate to the jury what laws they are to enforce<\/em>, it is no longer a \u2018trial by the country,\u2019 but a trial by the government.\u201d <\/p>\n

Damon W. Root, “Clarence Thomas\u2019 Favorite Anarchist: The radical anti-statism of Lysander Spooner”, Reason<\/em><\/a>, 2010-09-16<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 1850 Spooner published A Defence for Fugitive Slaves, Against the Acts of Congress on February 12, 1793 and September 18, 1850, where he argued that juries \u201care judges of the law, as well as the fact\u201d and are therefore justified in nullifying federal fugitive slave laws. \u201cNo man can be punished for resisting the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[84,9,10,41,13],"tags":[343,267],"class_list":["post-5414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government","category-law","category-liberty","category-quotations","category-usa","tag-crimeandpunishment","tag-justice"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-1pk","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5414"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5414\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5416,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5414\/revisions\/5416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}