oral proposition, it is perfectly self-evident that, unless juries
have all the legal rights that have been claimed for them in the
preceding chapters,--that is, the rights of judging what the law is,
whether the law be a just one, what evidence is admissible, what weight
the evidence is entitled to, whether an act were done with a criminal
intent, and the right also to _limit_ the sentence, free of all
dictation from any quarter,--they have no _moral_ right to sit in the
trial at all, and cannot do so without making themselves accomplices in
any injustice that they may have reason to believe may result from
their verdict. It is absurd to say that they have no moral
responsibility for the use that may be made of their verdict by the
government, when they have reason to suppose it will be used for
purposes of injustice.

It is, for instance, manifestly absurd to say that jurors have no moral
responsibility for the enforcement of an unjust law, when they consent
to render a verdict of _guilty_ for the transgression of it; which
verdict they know, or have good reason to believe, will be used by the
government as a justification for inflicting a penalty.

It is absurd, also, to say that jurors have no moral responsibility for
a punishment inflicted upon a man _against law_, when, at the dictation
of a judge as to what the law is, they have consented to render a
verdict against their own opinions of the law.

It is absurd, too, to say that jurors have no moral responsibility for
the conviction and punishment of an innocent man, when they consent to
render a verdict against him on the strength of evidence, or laws of
evidence, dictated to them by the court, if any evidence or laws of
evidence have been excluded, which _they_ (the jurors) think ought to
have been admitted in his defence.

It is absurd to say that jurors have no moral responsibility for
rendering a verdict of "_guilty_" against a man, for an act which he did
not know to be a crime, and in the commission of which, therefore, he
could have had no criminal intent, in obedience to the instructions of
courts that "ignorance of the law (that is, of crime) excuses no one."

It is absurd, also, to say that jurors have no moral responsibility for
any cruel or unreasonable _sentence_ that may be inflicted even upon a
_guilty_ man, when they consent to render a verdict which they have
reason to believe will be used by the government as a justification for
the inflict