Eddlem said he would have voted to convict Luisi in a state court; he simply felt there were no grounds for a federal prosecution. He opposes nullification, he added in an e-mail, but judges who ignore the Constitution pose a far greater threat than a "handful of 'nullification' radicals."
Juror's challenge raises legal issue - The Boston Globe
Hat tip to The Shotgun Blog.
Western Standard
I'd like to see more jurors reading Lysander Spooner's essay before they serve.
TRIAL BY JURY
So, also, if the government may dictate to the jury what laws they are to enforce, it is no longer a trial by the country,” [*9] but a trial by the government; because the jury then try the accused, not by any standard of their own --- by their own judgments of their rightful liberties --- but by a standard dictated to them by the government. And the standard, thus dictated by the government, becomes the measure of the people’s liberties. If the government dictate the standard of trial, it of course dictates the results of the trial. And such a trial is no trial by the country, but only a trial by the government; and in it the government determines what are its own powers over the people, instead of the people’s determining what are their own liberties against the government. In short, if the jury have no right to judge of the justice of a law of the government, they plainly can do nothing to protect the people, against the oppressions of the government; for there are no oppressions which the government may not authorize by law.
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