See, for example, Chief Justice Harlan F. Stone on the Jurors Duty: If a juror feels that the statute involved in any criminal offence is unfair, or that it infringes upon the defendant’s natural God-given unalienable or Constitutional rights, then it is his duty to affirm that the offending statute is really no law at all and that the violation of it is no crime at all, for no one is bound to obey an unjust law. That juror must vote Not Guilty regardless of the pressures or abuses that may be heaped on him by any or all members of the jury with whom he may in good conscience disagree. He is voting on the justice of the law according to his own conscience and convictions and not someone else’s. The law itself is on trial quite as much as the case which is to be decided. -- U.S. Chief Justice Harlan F. Stone, 1941-1946. (Emphases added.)
Posted on: Mon, 04 Aug 2014 20:03:30 +0000
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