Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quoteShare via Email Print this Page Daily Quotes Archives2018-05-18 May 18, 2018[N]o American should retreat an inch on the right of jurors to acquit if they perceive the law or its administration to be unjust.~ Charley ReeseOurs is an accusatorial and not an inquisitorial system – a system in which the state must establish guilt by evidence independently and freely secured and may not by coercion prove its charge against an accused out of his own mouth.~ Felix FrankfurterThe law itself is on trial quite as much as the cause which is to be decided.~ Harlan F. Stone May 17, 2018The jury in all criminal cases, shall be the judges of the law and the facts.~ Georgia, Declaration of RightsIn all criminal cases whatsoever, the jury shall have the right to determine the law and the facts.~ Indiana Constitution...and in all cases of libels, the jury shall have the right to determine the law and the facts, under the direction of the court, as in other cases.~ Texas Constitution May 15, 2018What is the fairest fruit of the English Tree of Liberty? The security of our rights and of the law, and that no man shall be brought to trial where there is a prejudice against him.~ Thomas ErskineJurors have found, again and again, and at critical moments, according to what is their sense of the rational and just. If their sense of justice has gone one way, and the case another, they have found “against the evidence,” ... the English common law rests upon a bargain between the Law and the people: The jury box is where the people come into the court: The judge watches them and the people watch back. A jury is the place where the bargain is struck. The jury attends in judgment, not only upon the accused, but also upon the justice and the humanity of the Law.~ E. P. ThompsonIt is left, therefore, to the juries, if they think the permanent judges are under any bias whatever in any cause, to take on themselves to judge the law as well as the fact. They never exercise this power but when they suspect partiality in the judges, and by the exercise of this power they have been the firmest bulwarks of English liberty.~ Thomas Jefferson May 14, 2018We have a criminal jury system which is superior to any in the world; and its efficiency is only marred by the difficulty of finding twelve men every day who don't know anything and can't read.~ Mark TwainFor more than six hundred years -- that is, since the 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 the justice of the law, and to hold all laws invalid, that are, in their opinion, unjust, oppressive, and all persons guiltless in violating or resisting the execution of such laws.~ Lysander SpoonerA juror who is forced by the judge’s instructions to convict a defendant whose conduct he applauds or at the least feels is justifiable, will lose respect for the legal system. . . . A juror compelled to decide against his own judgment will rebel at the system that made him a traitor to himself.~ Alan W. Scheflin Previous week's quotes Next week's quotes Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print