Lysander Spooner Quotes
Now it is clear, that if the government can exclude, on account either of their opinions or feelings, any persons thus drawn by lot, the trial is no longer a trial by 'the country,' but only by a portion of the country.
Spooner, Lysander. An Essay on the Trial by Jury. Bela Marsh, 1852, p. 142.
This is a very important and fundamental quotation. Jefferson, John Adams, John Jay and many other Founding Fathers told us that the jury of peers was the final arbiter of a court case. However, many modern judges and legislatures have tried to erode that principle. In most states judges instructs juries that they are the final arbiter of the facts but he/she is the final arbiter of the law and how it should be applied in the case. But the founders wanted the jury to be the final arbiters of the law as well as the facts as is illustrated here and in {640587} and {640589}. For a more modern concurring view, see {640590}.
Jury nullification is when the jury believes that the defendant has committed the crime alleged, but acquits anyway because it believes the law is wrong or the defendant acted properly or justly. Most trial judges detest the concept and often tell the jury that they may not engage in the practice. However, there is a long American tradition of jury nullification dating back to colonial America. This quotation shows one of the negative aspects of nullification. See {640833}.
Note that in his very definition of a Petty Jury the right of the jury to ignore the judge's instructions in criminal matters wasa assumed--not some novel idea. Jury nullification has been a part of the American Criminal Justice System from the inception of the nation.
Lysander Spooner was an American individualist anarchist. He was also an abolitionist, entrepreneur, essayist, legal theorist, pamphletist, political philosopher, Unitarian, writer and a member of the First International.
