Jury

We have a duty to discharge to the individual as well as to the public. We cannot make a man serve at the hazard of his life.

— Jury

The hungry judges soon the sentence sign,And wretches hang, that jurymen may dine.

— Jury

I think a mistrial from a hung jury is a safeguard to liberty. In many areas it is the sole means by which one or a few may stand out against an overwhelming contemporary public sentiment. Nothing should interfere with its exercise.

— Jury

In the ultimate analysis, only the jury can strip a man of his liberty or his life.

— Jury

Make every private Sentinel, every Musquetier, both Judge, Jury, and Executioner.

— Jury

A fox should not be of the jury at a goose's trial.

— Jury

Were I called upon to decide whether the people had best be omitted in the Legislative or Judiciary department, I would say it is better to leave them out of the Legislative. The execution of the laws is more important than the making of them.

— Jury

Jurors now expect us to have a DNA test for just about every case, they expect us to have the most advanced technology possible, and they expect it to look like it does on television.

— Jury

When juries refuse to convict on the basis of what they think are unjust laws, they are performing their duty as jurors.

— Jury

[T]ake it to be the bounden duty of the Judge to lay down the law as it strikes him, and that of the jury to accede to it, unless they have superior knowledge on the subject.

— Jury

Though a definition, or maxim in law, without an exception, it is said, is hardly to be found, yet this I take to be a maxim, without an exception: ad quœstionem juris non respondent juratores; ad quœstionem facti non respondent judices.

— Jury

It is of the greatest consequence to the law of England and to the Subject, that the powers of the Judge and Jury are kept distinct: that the Judge determines the law, and the Jury the fact: and if ever they come to be confounded it will prove the confusion and destruction of the law of England.

— Jury

Blackstone considers trial by jury as having been universally established amongst all the northern nations, and so interwoven in their very Constitution, that the earliest accounts of the one gives us also some traces of the other.

— Jury

The jury cannot find evidence : they must find facts.

— Jury

It is certainly a rule that the jury must find facts, and not merely evidence of facts.

— Jury

It is the Court, not the jury, who are to determine the law.

— Jury

I am as jealous of the rights of juries as of those of the Court.

— Jury

The man, who laugh'd but once to see an assThe prickles of unpalatable law.

— Jury

I am sure from my experience of juries that, in a criminal case especially, they will obey the law as declared by the Judge; they will take the law from the Judge, whether they like it or do not like it, and apply it honestly to the facts before them.

— Jury

It is a strange, wild jurisdiction, where the jurors are judges both of law and fact, and ignorant country fellows2 are to determine the nicest points of law.

— Jury

You all very well know what deference I always pay, and ever will, to that part of the office of a jury which properly belongs to them. In regard to the law, I have always been as tenacious of the proper function of a Judge, as I have been of that of the jury. I never will, while I have the honour of executing the office of a Judge, attempt to controul or influence their minds in respect of damages; but only submit to them such observations as occur to me upon the evidence.

— Jury

It will be your verdict, and not the verdict of the Court; we are responsible for the law, it is our duty to state the law, and I have laid down principles from great authority.

— Jury

The best way in which a jury can execute their duty is to give their verdict according to the evidence before them.

— Jury

If I were master of eloquence I would not make the decision of this cause a stage upon which I would display that eloquence. Those things which are very proper for advocates to do,1 become very improper for the Judge/who has nothing to do, but to state to the jury the short grounds upon which the cause ought to proceed.

— Jury

Our trials by juries are of such consideration in our law that we allow their determination to be best and most advantageous to the subject; and therefore less evidence is required than by the civil law. So said Fortescue in his commendation of the laws of England.

— Jury

Upon trials, the jury ought not to have any evidence laid before them but what is proper.

— Jury

Le direction del Judge in civil pleas doit estre hypothetic, si le fait soil trove tiel, donque pur le plaintiff ou defendant, mes ne ungues positive ou coercive, ne le jury finable: The direction of the Judge in civil pleas ought to be hypothetick, if the fact be found such, then for the plaintiff or defendant, but never positive or coercive, nor is the jury finable.

— Jury

Le jury est perjure si le verdict soit contra lour proper judgment, coment per direction del Court, car lour serement oblige eux al lour judgment proper: The jury is perjured if the verdict be against their own judgment, tho' by direction of the Court, for their oath obliges them to their own judgment.

— Jury

Est le duty dun Judge de examiner le Jury, et de Juror al responder, et si ne voet respondre, ou rendra verdict contr1 lour response, en lun et lauter case, il est finable: It is the duty of a Judge to examine the Jury, and of a Juror to answer, and if he will not answer, or shall give a verdict contrary to their answer, in either case he is finable.2—Vaughan, L.C.J., Bushel's Case (1670), Jones's (Sir Thos.) Rep. 15.

— Jury

In my mind, he was guilty of no error, he was chargeable with no exaggeration, he was betrayed by his fancy into no metaphor, who once said, that all we see about us, Kings, Lords, and Commons, the whole machinery of the State, all the apparatus of the system, and its varied workings, end in simply bringing twelve good men into a box.

— Jury

There is no distinction between a good jury and a common jury.

— Jury

It is infinitely better that a cause should be tried upon a view had by any twelve than by six of the first twelve; or by any six; or by fewer than six; or even without any view at all, than that the trial should be delayed from year to year, perhaps for ever: it can never be proper or necessary to grant a view which is asked and used for so unjust a purpose.

— Jury

I have always told a jury that if a fact is fully proved by two witnesses it is as good as if proved by a hundred.

— Jury

The jury can't find a negative, unless' such an one as is proved by an affirmative.

— Jury

Challenges being for the sake of justice, they are greatly favoured in the law.

— Jury

I have had the honour of being a considerable time on the bench; I cannot now pretend to bear fatigue as well as formerly, but I hope I shall take care that the jurors or myself shall not be in danger of being destroyed.

— Jury

We are all desirous to sit as long as we can, but necessity justifies that which it compels; the strength of man is not adequate to this. Lord Mansfield, as little inclined to give way as any man, did give way at a certain hour in the case of Lord Pomfret.

— Jury