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"The trial by jury," then, is a "trial by the country" - that is, by the people - as distinguished from a trial by the government.
It was anciently called " trial per pais" - that is, "trial by the country." And now, in every criminal trial, the jury are told that the accused "has, for trial, put himself upon the country; which country you (the jury) are."
The object of this trial " by the country," or by the people, in preference to a trial by the government, is to guard against every species of oppression by the government. In order to effect this end, it is indispensable that the people, or "the country," judge of and determine their own liberties against the government; instead of the government's judging of and determining its own powers over the people. How is it possible that juries can do anything to protect the liberties of the people against the government, if they are not allowed to determine what those liberties are?
Any government, that is its own judge of, and determines authoritatively for the people, what are its own powers over the people, is an absolute government of course. It has all the powers that it chooses to exercise. There is no other - or at least no more accurate - definition of a despotism than this.
On the other hand, any people, that judge of, and determine authoritatively for the government, what are their own liberties against the government, of course retain all the liberties they wish to enjoy. And this is freedom. At least, it is freedom to them; because, although it may be theoretically imperfect, it, nevertheless, corresponds to their highest notions of freedom.
To secure this right of the people to judge of their own liberties against the government, the jurors are taken, (or must be, to make them lawful jurors,) from the body of the people, by lot, or by some process that precludes any previous knowledge, choice, or selection of them, on the part of the government. This is done to prevent the government's constituting a jury of its own partisans or friends; in other words, to prevent the government's packing a jury, with a view to maintain its own laws, and accomplish its own purposes.
It is supposed that, if twelve men be taken, by lot, from the mass of the people, without the possibility of any previous knowledge, choice, or selection of them, on the part of the government, the jury will be a fair epitome of "the country” at large, and not merely of the party or faction that sustain the measures of the government; that substantially all classes of opinions, prevailing among the people, will be represented in the jury; and especially that the opponents of the government, (if the government have any opponents,) will be represented there, as well as its friends; that the classes, who are oppressed by the laws of the government, (if any are thus oppressed,) will have their representatives in the jury, as well as those classes, who take sides with the oppressor - that is, with the government.
It is fairly presumable that such a tribunal will agree to no conviction except such as substantially the whole country would agree to, if they were present, taking part in the trial. A trial by such a tribunal is, therefore, in effect, "a trial by the country." In its results it probably comes as near to a trial by the whole country, as any trial that it is practicable to have, without too great inconvenience and expense. And as unanimity is required for a conviction, it follows that no one can be convicted, except for the violation of such laws as substantially the whole country wish to have maintained. The government can enforce none of its laws, (by punishing offenders, through the verdicts of juries,) except such as substantially the whole people wish to have enforced. The government, therefore, consistently with the trial by jury, can exercise no powers over the people, (or, what is the same thing, over the accused person, who represents the rights of the people,) except such as substantially the whole people of the country consent that it may exercise. In such a trial, therefore, "the country," or the people, judge of and determine their own liberties against the government, instead of the government's judging of and determining its own powers over the people.
But all this " trial by the country" would be no trial at all "by the country," but only a trial by the government, if the government could either declare who may, and who may not, be jurors, or could dictate to the jury anything whatever, either of law or evidence, that is of the essence of the trial.
If the government may decide who may, and who may not, be jurors, it will of course select only its partisans, and those friendly to its measures. It may not only prescribe who may, and who may not, be eligible to be drawn as jurors; but it may also question each person drawn as a juror, as to his sentiments in regard to the particular law involved in each trial, before suffering him to be sworn on the panel; and exclude him if he be found unfavorable to the maintenance of such a law."* [footnote]
[footnote]
*To show that this supposition is not an extravagant one, it may be mentioned that courts have repeatedly questioned jurors to ascertain whether they were prejudiced against the government- that is, whether they were in favor of, or opposed to, such laws of the government as were to be put in issue in the then pending trial. This was done (in 1851) in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, by Peleg Sprague, the United States district judge, in empanelling three several juries for the trials of Scott, Hayden, and Morris, charged with having aided in the rescue of a fugitive slave from the custody of the United States deputy marshal. This judge caused the following question to be propounded to all the jurors separately; and those who answered unfavorably for the purposes of the government, were excluded from the panel.
“Do you hold any opinions upon the subject of the Fugitive Slave Law, so called, which will induce you to refuse to convict a person indicted under it, if the facts set forth in the Indictment, and constituting the offence, are proved against him, and the court direct you that the law is constitutional"
The reason of this question was, that “the Fugitive Slave Law, so called,” was so obnoxious to a large portion of the people, as to render a conviction under it hopeless, if the jurors were taken indiscriminately from among the people.
A similar question was soon afterwards propounded to the persons drawn as jurors in the United States Circuit Court for the District of Massachusetts, by Benjamin R. Curtis, one of the Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, in empanelling a jury for the trial of the aforesaid Morris on the charge before mentioned; and those who did not answer the question favorably for the government were again excluded from the panel.
It has also been an habitual practice with the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, in empanelling juries for the trial of capital offences, to inquire of the persons drawn as jurors whether they had any conscientious scruples against finding verdicts of guilty in such cases; that is, whether they had any conscientious scruples against sustaining the law prescribing death as the punishment of the crime to be tried; and to exclude from the panel all who answered in the affirmative.
The only principle upon which these questions are asked, is this - that no man shall be allowed to serve as juror, unless he be ready to enforce any enactment of the government, however cruel or tyrannical it may be.
What is such a jury good for, as a protection against the tyranny of the government? A jury like that is palpably nothing but a mere tool of oppression in the hands of the government. A trial by such a jury is really a trial by the government itself - and not a trial by the country - because it is a trial only the men specially selected by the government for their readiness to enforce its own tyrannical measures.
If that be the true principle of the trial by jury, the trial utterly worthless as a security to liberty. The Czar might, with perfect safety to his authority, introduce the trial by jury into Russia, if he could but be permitted to select his jurors from those who were ready to maintain his laws, without regard to their injustice.
This example is sufficient to show that the very pith of the trial by jury, as a safeguard to liberty, consists in the jurors being taken indiscriminately from the whole people, and in their right to hold invalid all laws which they think unjust.
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https://docs.google.com/document/d/17bxxD3cm1zoeWu02UGPNZg4ifbaqZNRzhPNqplGLQmo/edit
Ancient Law Right of resistance
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That this right of resistance was recognized as a common law right, when the ancient and genuine trial by jury was in force, is not only proved by nature of the trial itself, but is acknowledged by history.*
*Hallam says, “The relation established between a lord and his vassal by the feudal tenure, far from containing principles of any servile and implicit obedience, permitted the compact to be dissolved in case of its violation by either party. This extended as much to the sovereign as to inferior lords. If a vassal was aggrieved, and if justice was denied him, he sent a defiance, that is, a renunciation of fealty to the king, and was entitled to enforce redress at the point of his sword. It then became a contest of strength as between two independent potentates, and was terminated by treaty, advantageous or otherwise, according to the fortune of war. * * There remained the original principle, that allegiance depended conditionally upon good treatment, and that an appeal might be lawfully made to arms against an oppressive government. Nor was this, we may be sure, left for extreme necessity, or thought to require a long enduring forbearance. In modern times, a king, compelled by his subjects’ swords to abandon any pretension, would be supposed to have ceased to reign; and the express recognition of such a right as that of insurrection has been justly deemed inconsistent with the majesty of law. But ruder ages had ruder sentiments. Force was necessary to repel force; and men accustomed to see the king’s authority defied by a private riot, were not much shocked when it was resisted in defence of public freedom.” - 3 Middle Ages, 240-2.
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The bounds set to the power of the government, by the trial by jury, as will hereafter be shown, are these - that the government shall never touch the property, person, or natural or civil rights of an individual, against his consent, (except for the purpose of bringing them before a jury for trial.) unless in pursuance and execution of a judgment, or decree, rendered by a jury in each individual case, upon such evidence, and such law, as are satisfactory to their own understandings and consciences, irrespective of all legislation of the government.
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AND
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The king was, therefore, constitutionally the government; and the only legal limitation upon his power seems to have been simply the Common Law, usually called “the law of the land,” which he was bound by oath to maintain; (which oath had about the same practical value as similar oaths have always had.) This “law of the land” seems not to have been regarded at all by many of the kings, except so far as they found it convenient to do so, or were constrained to observe it by the fear of arousing resistance. But as all people are slow in making resistance, oppression and usurpation often reached a great height; and, in the case of John, they had become so intolerable as to enlist the nation almost universally against him; and he was reduced to the necessity of complying with any terms the barons saw fit to dictate to him.
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AND
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Coke’s rendering is, if possible, the most absurd and gratuitous of all. What is there in the words, “nec super eum mittemus,” that can be made to mean “nor shall he be condemned before any other commissioner or judge whatsoever?” Clearly there is nothing. The whole rendering is a sheer fabrication. And the whole object of it is to give color for the exercise of a judicial power, by the king, or his judges, which is nowhere given them.
Neither the words, “nec super eum ibimus, nec super eum mittemus,” nor any other words in the whole chapter, authorize, provide for, describe, or suggest, any judicial action whatever, on the part either of the king, or of his judges, or of anybody, except the peers, or jury. There is nothing about the king’s judges at all. And there is nothing whatever, in the whole chapter, so far as relates to the action of the king, that describes or suggests anything but executive action.
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Clearly there is nothing. The whole rendering is a sheer fabrication. And the whole object of it is to give color for the exercise of a judicial power, by the king, or his judges, which is nowhere given them.
AND
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*Perhaps the assertion in the text should be made with this qualification - that the words" per "per legem terrae," (according to the law of the land,) and the words "per legale judicium parium sworum,” (according to the legal judgment of his peers,) imply that the king, before proceeding to any executive action, will take notice of “the law of the land," and of the legality of the judgment of the peers, and will execute upon the prisoner nothing except what the law of the land authorizes, and no judgments of the peers, except legal ones. With this qualification, the assertion in the text is strictly correct - that there is nothing in the whole chapter that grants to the king, or his judges, any judicial power at all. The chapter only describes and limit his executive power.
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AND
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It is evident that the difference between the true and false translations of the words, nec super eum ibimus, nec super eum mittemus, is of the highest legal importance, inasmuch as the true translation, nor will we (the king) proceed against him, nor send (any one) against him by force or arms, represents the king only in an executive character, carrying the judgment of the peers and “the law of the land” into execution; whereas the false translation, nor will we pass upon him, nor condemn him, gives color for the exercise of a judicial power, on the part of the king, to which the king had no right, but which, according to the true translation, belongs wholly to the jury.
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...the difference between the true and false translations of the words...gives color for the exercise of a judicial power...
AND
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The true meaning of the phrase, per judicium parium suorum, is, according to the sentence of his peers. The word judicium, judgment, has a technical meaning in the law, signifying the decree rendered in the decision of a cause. In civil suits this decision is called a judgment; in chancery proceedings it is called a decree; in criminal actions it is called a sentence, or judgment, indifferently. Thus, in a criminal suit, “a motion in arrest of judgment,” means a motion in arrest of sentence.
In cases of sentence, therefore, in criminal suits, the words sentence and judgment are synonymous terms. They are, to this day, commonly used in law books as synonymous terms. And the phrase per judicium parium suorum, therefore, implies that the jury are to fix the sentence.
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AND
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If any additional proof were wanted that juries were to fix the sentence, it would be found in the following provisions of Magna Carta, viz.:
“A freeman shall not be amerced for a small crime, (delicto,) but according to the degree of the crime; and for a great crime in proportion to the magnitude of it, saving to him his contenement; and after the same manner a merchant, saving to him his merchandise. And a villein shall be amerced after the same manner, saving to him his waynage, if he fall under our mercy; and none of the aforesaid amercements shall be imposed, (or assessed, ponatur,) but the oath of honest men of the neighborhood. Earls and Barons shall not be amerced but by their peers, and according to the degree of their crime.”
Pecuniary punishments were the most common punishments at that day, and the foregoing provisions of Magna Carta show that the amount of those punishments was to be fixed by the jury.
Fines went to the king, and were a source of revenue; and if the amounts of the fines had been left to be fixed by the king, he would have had a pecuniary temptation to impose unreasonable and oppressive ones. So, also, in regard to other punishments than fines. If it were left to the king to fix the punishment, he might often have motives to inflict cruel and oppressive ones. As it was the object of the trial by jury to protect the people against all possible oppression from the king, it was necessary that the jury, and not the king, should fix the punishments.
Footnotes: Contenement of a freeman was the means of living in the condition of a freeman.
Waynage was a villein's plough-tackle and carts.
Tomlin says, “The ancient practice was, when any such fine was imposed, to inquire by a jury quantum inde regi dare valeat per annum, salva sutentatione sua et uroris et liberorum suorum, (how much is he able to give to the king per annum, saving his own maintenance, and that of his wife and children). And since the disuse of such inquest, it is never usual to assess a larger fine than a man ss able to pay, without touching the implements of his livelihood; but to inflict corporal punishment, or a limited imprisonment, instead of such a fine as might amount to imprisonment for life. And this is the reason why fines in the king's courts are frequently denominated ransomed by a pecuniary fine.” - Tomlin’s Law Dict., word Fine.
Because juries were to fix the sentence, It must not be supposed that the king was obliged to carry the sentence into execution; but only that he could not go beyond the sentence. He might pardon, or he might acquit on grounds of law, notwithstanding the sentence; but he could not punish beyond the extent of the sentence. Magna Carta does not prescribe that the king shall punish according to the sentence of the peers; but only that he shall not punish "unless according to" that sentence. He ma acquit or pardon, notwithstanding their sentence or judgment; but he cannot punish, except according to their judgment.
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AND:
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Judging, therefore, from the special provisions in Magna Carta, requiring fines, or amercements, to be imposed only by juries, (without mentioning any other punishments; ) judging; also, from the statutes which immediately followed Magna Carta, it is probable that the Saxon custom of punishing all, or nearly all, offences by fines, (with the alternative to the criminal of being imprisoned, banished, or outlawed, and exposed to private vengeance, in case of non-payment,) continued until the time of Magna Carta; and that in providing expressly that fines should be fixed by the juries, Magna Carta provided for nearly or quite all the punishments that were expected to be inflicted; that if there were to be any others, they were to be fixed by the juries; and consequently that nothing was left to be fixed by “legem terrae.”
AND
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We also know that, by Magna Carta, amercements, or fines, could not be imposed to the ruin of the criminal; that, in the case of a freeman, his contenement, or means of subsisting in the condition of a freeman, must be saved to him; that, in the case of a merchant, his merchandise must be spared; and in the case of a villein, his waynage, or plough-tackle and carts. This also is likely to have been a princple of the common law, inasmuch as, in that rude age, when the means of getting employment as laborers was not what they are now, the man and his family would probably have been liable to starvation, if these means of subsistence had been taken from him.
We also know, generally, that, at the time of Magna Carta, all acts intrinsically criminal, all trespasses against persons and property, were crimes, according to lex terrae, or the common law.
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must be saved to him
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We also know that, by Magna Carta, amercements, or fines, could not be imposed to the ruin of the criminal; that, in the case of a freeman, his contenement, or means of subsisting in the condition of a freeman, must be saved to him; that, in the case of a merchant, his merchandise must be spared; and in the case of a villein, his waynage, or plough-tackle and carts. This also is likely to have been a principle of the common law, inasmuch as, in that rude age, when the means of getting employment as laborers was not what they are now, the man and his family would probably have been liable to starvation, if these means of subsistence had been taken from him.
We also know, generally, that, at the time of Magna Carta, all acts intrinsically criminal, all trespasses against persons and property, were crimes, according to lex terrae, or the common law.
Beyond the points now given, we hardly know anything, probably nothing with certainty, as to wah the “legem terrae” of Magna Carta did authorize, in regard to crimes. There is hardly anything extant that can give us any real light on the subject.
It would seem, however, that there were, even at that day, some common law principles governing arrests; and some common law forms and rules as to holding a man for trial, (by bail or imprisonment; ) putting him on trial, such as by indictment or complaint; summoning and empanelling jurors, &c, &c. Whatever these common law principles were, Magna Carta requires them to be observed; for Magna Carta provides for the whole proceedings, commencing with the arrest, (“no freeman shall be arrested,” &c.,) and ending with the execution of the sentence. And it provides that nothing shall be done, by the government, from beginning to end, unless according to the sentence of the peers, or “legem terrae,” the common law. The trial by peers was a part of legem terrae, and we have seen that the peers must necessarily have governed the whole proceeding at the trial. But all the proceedings for arresting the man, and bringing him to trial, must have been had before the case could come under the cognizance of the peers, and they must, therefore, have been governed by other rules than the discretion of the peers. We may conjecture, although we cannot perhaps know with much certainty, that the lex terrae, or common law, governing these other proceedings, was somewhat similar to the common law principles, on the same points, as the present day. Such seem to be the opinions of Coke, who says that the phrase nisi per legem terrae means unless by due process of law.
This, he says:
“Nisi per legem terrae. But by the law of the land. For the true sense and exposition of these words, see the statute of 37 Edw. III., cap. 8, where the words, by the law of the land, are rendered without due process of law; for there it is said, though it be contained in the Great Charter, that no man be taken, imprisoned, or put out of his freehold, without process of the law; that is, by indictement or presentment of good and lawful men, where such deeds be done in due manner, or by writ original of the common law.
“Without being brought in to answer but by due process of the common law.
“No man be put to answer without presentment before justices, or thing of record, or by due process, or by writ original, according to the old law of the land.” - 2 Inst. 50.
The foregoing interpretations of the words nisi per legem terrae are corroborated by the following statutes, enacted in the next century after Magna Carta.
“That no man, from henceforth, shall be attached by any accusation, nor forejudged of life or limb, nor his land, tenements, goods, nor chattels, seized into the king’s hands, against the form of the Great Charter, and the law of the land.” - St. 5 Edward III., Ch. 9. (1331.)
“Whereas it is contained in the Great Charter of the franchises of England, that none shall be imprisoned, nor put out of his freehold, nor of his franchises, nor free customs, unless it be by the law of the land; it is accorded, assented, and established, that from henceforth none shall be taken by petition, or suggestion made to our lord the king, or to his council, unless it be by indictment of presentment of good and lawful people of the same neighborhood where such deeds be done in due manner, or by process made by writ original at the common law; nor that none be put out of his franchises, nor of his freehold, unless he be duly brough into answer, and forejudged of the same by the course of the law; and if anything be done against the same, it shall be redressed and holden for none.” - St. 25 Edward III., Ch. 4. (1350.)
“That no man, of what estate or condition that he be, shall be put out of land or tenement, nor taken, nor imprisoned, nor disinherited, nor put to death, without being brought in answer by due process of law.” - St. 28 Edward III., Ch. 3. (1354.)
“That no man be put to answer without presentment before justices, or matter of record, or by due process and writ original, according to the old law of the land. And if anything from henceforth be done to the contrary, it shall be void in law, and holden for error.” - St. 42 Edward III., Ch. 3. (1368.)
The foregoing interpretation of the words nisi per legem terrae - that is, by due process of law - including indictment, &c., has been adopted as the true one by modern writers and courts; as, for example, by Kent, (2 Comm. 13,) Story, (3 Comm. 661,) and Supreme Court of New York, (19 Wendell, 676; 4 Hill, 146.)
The fifth amendment to the constitution of the United States seems to have been framed on the same idea, inasmuch as it provides that “no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” *
*Coke, in his exposition of the words legem terrae, gives quite in detail the principles of the common law governing arrests; and takes it for granted that the words “nisi per legem terrae” are applicable to arrests, as well as to the indictment, &c. - 2 Inst., 51, 52.
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https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jcshWyNQn6nMA5Udvo2U_WODy62YaqXxbVjW-vAFRVE/edit