Lysander Spooner Quote

"For 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."

By:	Lysander Spooner (more quotes by Lysander Spooner or books by/about Lysander Spooner)
	(1808-1887) Political theorist, activist, abolitionist
Source:	AN ESSAY ON THE TRIAL BY JURY p. 11 (1852)
Categories:	Conscience, Duty, Individual Rights, Jury, Justice, Law, Morality
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