Liberty Quotes - Daily Email History

"In “A jury’s duty” (11/8) by Mike Romano, John Junker asserts that juries have the right to nullify laws in principle but should not use this right in practice. Would he then be willing to give up the rights of free speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, freedom to organize a labor union, abolition of slavery in the North, and the repeal of alcohol prohibition—all of which were given to us by juries who put the principle of nullification into practice? Without jury nullification no systematic veto exists for the people and tyranny ensues."

~ Patricia Michl Sumner  

~ U.S. Court of Appeals District of Columbia  

~ U.S. Court of Appeals First Circuit  

"Jurors should acquit, even against the judge’s instruction ... if exercising their judgment with discretion and honesty they have a clear conviction that the charge of the court is wrong."

~ Andrew Hamilton  

"[That] the Jury may determine the law and the fact of the case, has been supported by every English judge, except Chief Justice Jeffries .... And to their credit be it spoken that the Juries have always been right on fundamental questions of liberty and popular right."

~ Georgia Supreme Court  

~ Georgia Supreme Court  

The drafters of the Constitution clearly intended [the right of trial by jury] to protect the accused from oppression by the Government. Singer v. United States, 380 U.S. 24, 31, 85 S. Ct. 783, 788, 13 L. Ed. 2d 630 (1965). ... Part of this protection is embodied in the concept of jury nullification: “In criminal cases, a jury is entitled to acquit the defendant because it has no sympathy for the government’s position.” United States v. Wilson, 629 F.2d 439, 443 (6th Cir. 1980). The Founding Fathers knew that, absent jury nullification, judicial tyranny not only was a possibility, but was a reality in the colonial experience. Although we may view ourselves as living in more civilized times, there is obviously no reason to believe the need for this protection has been eliminated. Judicial and prosecutorial excesses still occur, and Congress is not yet an infallible body incapable of making tyrannical laws.

~ Judge Thomas Wiseman  

"The jury possesses a general veto power and may acquit when it has no sympathy for the Government’s case, no matter how overwhelming the evidence of guilt. A jury acquittal is final and unreviewable; a judge may not direct a jury to convict or vacate an acquittal, nor may a prosecutor appeal an acquittal on grounds of judicial error or erroneous jury determination."

~ Lieutenant Commander Robert E. Korroch  

~ U.S. Supreme Court  

"The germ of dissolution of our federal government is in ... the federal judiciary; an irresponsible body (for impeachment is scarcely a scare-crow), working like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little today and a little tomorrow, and advancing it’s noiseless step like a thief, over the field of jurisdiction, until all shall be usurped from the States, and the government of all be consolidated into one. ...when all government... in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the centre of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated."

~ Thomas Jefferson  

~ Alexander Hamilton  

~ U.S. Court of Appeals Sixth Circuit  

"We must pity the poor wretched, timid soul who is too faint-hearted to resist his oppressors. He sings the song of the dammed: “I can’t fight back; I have too much to lose; I own too much property; I have worked too hard to get what I have; They will put me out of business if I resist; I might go to jail; I have my family to think about.” Such poor miserable creatures have misplaced values and are hiding their cowardice behind pretended family responsibility -- blindly refusing to see that the most glorious legacy that one can bequeath to posterity is liberty; and that the only true security is liberty."

~ Marvin Cooley  

"A 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  

"I do encourage you to question authority, apply logic, and think for yourself. Look at the forest, not the trees. And the centuries, not the months. Or you might risk being lead willingly, as a sheep, to the slaughter."

~ Rick Gaber