QotD: Jury Rights Day

September 5 is the anniversary of the date in 1670 when an independent English jury, in defiance of directions from the court, acquitted William Penn of the 'crime' of preaching a non-state-approved religion. The jurors paid a frightful price for acting in accordance with their consciences, but their act helped establish the idea of freedom of religion that we now hold so dear.

Penn eventually came to colonial America, where later jurors in the trial of John Peter Zenger helped established freedom of the press by refusing to convict Zenger of sedition for printing substantiated news critical of the Royal Governor of New York even when instructed by the court that under the law, ". . . truth is no defense".

Since the founding of our country, jurors exercising their unreviewable and irreversible power to acquit in disregard of the instructions on the law given by trial judges have helped bring about the abolition of slavery and to end Prohibition.

How is this relevant today? Some juries are starting to object to actions taken by prosecutors in the New Prohibition, the War on (some) Drugs. And with the plethora of Constitutionally-questionable new laws being enacted in reaction to last year's terrorist attacks, individuals must be increasingly vigilant in defending their liberties against encroachment.

The jury is the citizen's final peaceful check on, and safeguard against, unjust law and tyranny. It is our Republic's founders' legacy of true "power to the people". That is why many who value liberty celebrate September 5 as Jury Rights Day.

Robert Gibson, letter to Libertarian Enterprise, 2002-09-08