Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quoteShare via Email Print this Page Daily Quotes Archives2018-05-22 May 22, 2018Laws control the lesser man. Right conduct controls the greater one.~ Chinese ProverbIt is not what a lawyer tells me I may do; but what humanity, reason, and justice tell me I ought to do.~ Edmund BurkeI often wonder whether we do not rest our hopes too much upon constitutions, upon law and upon courts. These are false hopes, believe me, these are false hopes. Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it; no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. While it lies there it needs no constitution, no law, no courts to save it.~ Judge Learned Hand May 21, 2018Of the liberty of conscience in matters of religious faith, of speech and of the press; of the trial by jury of the vicinage in civil and criminal cases; of the benefit of the writ of habeas corpus; of the right to keep and bear arms.... If these rights are well defined, and secured against encroachment, it is impossible that government should ever degenerate into tyranny.~ James MonroeTherefore, the jury have the power of deciding an issue upon a general verdict. And, if they have, is it not an absurdity to suppose that the law would oblige them to find a verdict according to the direction of the court, against their own opinion, judgment, and conscience? ... [I]s a juror to give his verdict generally, according to [the judge’s] direction, or even to find the fact specially, and submit the law to the court? Every man, of any feeling or conscience, will answer, no. It is not only his right, but his duty, in that case, to find the verdict according to his own best understanding, judgment, and conscience, though in direct opposition to the direction of the court.~ John AdamsProtection, therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough; there needs protection against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling, against the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them.~ John Stuart Mill 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 Previous week's quotes Next week's quotes Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print