View single post by kurtwaters
 Posted: Sun Mar 31st, 2013 09:35 pm
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kurtwaters

 

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Mana: 
 Got back from easter dinner at kathy's parents and checked in to see if you saw my post. You had. I read yours and followed the link and it's ideas about a bit and stumbled upon this paragraph in Wikipedia.  I don't know where it leads. I'm too  tired and full of Easter dinner to persue. It looked interesting at first glance. I sleep now.


       A celebrated legal case in 1734-1735 involved John Peter Zenger, a New York newspaper printer who regularly published material critical of corrupt then-Governor of New York, William Cosby. He was jailed eight months before being tried for seditious libel. Andrew Hamilton defended him and was made famous for his speech, ending in, "...nature and the laws of our country have given us a right to liberty of both exposing and opposing arbitrary power [...] by speaking and writing truth."[5] While the judge ruled against his arguments, Hamilton invoked the concept of jury nullification in the cause of liberty and won a not guilty verdict. The Zenger case paved the way for freedom of the press in the United States to be adopted in the constitution; as Founding Father Gouverneur Morris stated, "The trial of Zenger in 1735 was the germ of American freedom, the morning star of that liberty which subsequently revolutionized America."[5]