An Essay on the Trial By Jury

an rightfully do this, unless he hold in his own hand alone a veto upon any judgment or sentence whatever to be rendered by the jury against a defendant, which v

rnment to punish him; and that the legislature or the judge, and not himself, has in that case all the moral responsibility for the correctness of the principles on which the judgment was rendered, is one of the many

t the evidence is entitled to, whether an act were done with a criminal intent, and the right also to limit the sentence, free of all dictation from any quarter, they have no moral right to sit in the trial at all, and cannot do so without making themselves accomplices in any

n unjust law, when they consent to render a verdict of guilty for the transgression of it; which verdict they k

indicted upon a man against law, when, at the dictation of a judge as to what the l

hey consent to render a verdict against him on the strength of evidence, or laws of evidence, dictated to them by the court, if

an act which he did not know to be a crime, and in the commission of which, therefore, he could have had no crimin

nce that may be inflicted even upon a guilty man, when they consent to render a verdict which they have

ence, and sentence, or they incur the moral responsibility of accomplices in any injustice whic

or evidence, to render a verdict, on the strength of which they have reason to believe that a man's property will be taken

allow him to use his own judgment, on every part of the case, free of all dictation whatsoever, and to hold in his own hand a vet

an oath even to try a case "according to the evidence," because in all cases he may have good reason to believe that a party has been unable to produce all the evidence legitimately entitled to be received. The only oath which it would seem that a man can