Subject: OPEN LETTER to FOX NEWS Journalist Wendy McElroy from Kenn d'Oudney, DEMOCRACY DEFINED.
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Date: Thu, 20 Aug 2009 15:24:26 +0200

http://www.democracydefined.org/
The Home Page of The Democracy Defined Campaign
for RESTORATION and UNIVERSAL ADOPTION of
CONSTITUTIONAL COMMON LAW TRIAL BY JURY. 

The Democracy Defined Campaign Philosophy is endorsed by academics, attorneys,
doctors (of jurisprudence, medicine, homeopathy, philosophy, etc.) and judges (U.S. & U.K.).
(Standard English Spelling)

AN OPEN LETTER AND ESSAY
by Kenn d'Oudney, CEO,
THE DEMOCRACY DEFINED RESTORATION CAMPAIGN, 
In Refutation to
FOX NEWS JOURNALIST Wendy McElroy;
And for the Attention of Lew Rockwell et al
Who Promulgate Wendy's and Other Disinformation.
~
Trial By Jury: A Source of Freedom or a Bad Idea?
by Wendy McElroy.
[Article shown on Lew Rockwell's website.]
The "fully informed jury" strategy attempts to wedge the jury process as an obstacle between oppressive law and individual freedom. The strategy is based on the doctrine of jury nullification by which a juror can reject the law. That is, a juror can refuse to convict a defendant despite instructions from a judge if he believes either that the law is unjust or that its application is unjust. In essence, the jury renders a verdict on the law itself and not merely on the facts of a case.

Efforts to ensure fully informed juries are underway in various states. For example, in New Hampshire, a bill - HB 1236 - was passed by the House on March 29th but deemed "inexpedient to legislate" by the Senate on May 11th. The bill would have allowed "a criminal defendant" to demand that "the court instruct the jury of its inherent right to judge the law and the facts in controversy and to nullify."

Jury nullification has been established in common law since 1670 when an English jury refused to convict William Penn for the crime of preaching Quakerism. They were imprisoned for doing so. In a legal precedent, the English high court ruled that juries must be free to reach their own decisions without fear of punishment by the court. In 1735, jury nullification was affirmed in America when publisher John Peter Zenger was tried for printing "seditious libel" without first receiving the government's approval. The judge instructed the jury that no facts were in question since Zenger admitted the sedition. All that remained was the legality of his act and such "issues of law" were matters for the court to determine. The jurors were instructed to find Zenger guilty. Within ten minutes, they declared him not guilty.

Since then, the right and power of a jury to de facto overturn a law has been the subject of debate and inconsistent application. Advocates of individual rights tend to embrace jury nullification as a key aspect of trial by jury. 19th century individualists shared this tendency, with Lysander Spooner's treatise Trial by Jury often considered to be the definitive word. The first chapter of this work is entitled "The Right of Juries to Judge the Justice of Laws."

Nevertheless, an interesting debate on trial by jury erupted in the pages of a key 19th century individualist periodical, Liberty (1881-1908). The debate did not revolve around the usual controversies, such as the propriety of subpoena - the so-called "right" of the state to coerce testimony. Instead, it addressed the propriety of trial by jury itself and, thus, by necessary implication, of jury nullification. The debate raised important questions that should be considered before accepting the strategy of fully informed juries.

Perhaps the first question is how a group of twelve people can claim any right unless an individual has assigned it to them. Can a "collective" right supercede individual ones? After all, it cannot be said that the defendant has relinquished his rights due to committing an aggressive act as this is the very finding that the jury has been convened to determine.

The 16th century classical liberal John Locke believed that the need to protect "life, liberty, and estate" in society led men to form government. In exchange for protection, men willingly relinquished the right to adjudicate their own disputes - that is, the right to try their own cases in court. Locke also posited a form of tacit consent by which those who had not explicitly agreed were still bound to trial by jury. As long as a man remained in society, he consented to its jurisdiction, including its right to adjudicate disputes. Radical individualists in 19th century America generally demanded a more explicit transfer of authority from the individual to any collective entity. For them, how a jury had the right to sit in judgment on someone who objected to the process was a quandary.

In 1889, Liberty ran a series of articles by Victor Yarros collectively entitled "Free Political Institutions: Their Nature, Essence, and Maintenance." The series was advertised as "an abridgement and rearrangement" of Trial by Jury. Spooner's work had not addressed how juries acquired the right to try a case in any detail. But Yarros considered this issue to be so important that he repositioned text from Spooner's concluding chapter.

Yarros' version began with a statement of what Spooner called "free government":

"The theory of government is that it is formed by the voluntary contract of the people individually with each other." From here, Spooner had contended that certain laws or conditions were so obviously beneficial that all members of society would explicitly agree to them. Spooner considered trial by jury to be one of these overwhelmingly beneficial conditions.

The debate in Liberty refuted Spooner's assumption. At least some people would not consent to trial by jury. Adolph Herben declared that he preferred trial by experts rather than by laymen who would be ignorant of technical matters that might be crucial to his case. He deemed it absurd to hang a person on the "mere opinion of twelve ordinary men." Spooner had anticipated the objection from "ignorance." He argued that juries should not be granted power on the basis of their wisdom, but because they were not as vulnerable to corruption as judge and other officials.

[In McElroy's parallel article, A Reconsideration of Trial by Jury, she states Yarros's view]: "After all, a jury had convicted demonstrably innocent anarchists to death in the infamous [Chicago] Haymarket incident." 

In another Liberty article, however, Steven T. Byington argued that juries would be corrupt, at least, in the form of being biased. He quoted from an editorial run by the Times of Natal - a newspaper from an English speaking country in which racism made "trial by jury" for black defendants a mockery. Judgments simply could not be obtained against whites who committed crimes against blacks. Byington claimed that in the presence of such prejudices, "trial by jury" became an instrument of injustice. The prejudice did not even need to be widespread to have a disastrous impact on the integrity of the jury system. "If only ten per cent of the people were of this sort, more than sixty-four per cent of the juries would include one or more of these men to prevent a conviction. In order that there should be an even chance of twelve men taken at random being unanimously willing to judge according to certain principles, it is necessary that there be not so many as six per cent of the population who reject those principles."

Byington further objected to jury nullification due to "the need for certainty." He referred to laws "where it has been reasonably said that certainty is sometimes more important than justice." For example, publishers might well prefer a clear and consistently enforced standard of obscenity by which they could predict the legality of an article rather than rely upon the unpredictable decision of twelve men.

Perhaps the most interesting of Byington's objections was a practical one. He maintained that courts in a free society would arise in a free society would be unlikely to adopt the jury system because it was clumsy and expensive. Any free market court system that used juries might well operate at a distinct disadvantage by having to charge considerably more than its competitors. Thus, the modern form of a voluntary court - arbitration - does not include a jury. Byington speculated on how justice would be provided in a "society where things are done on a business basis." He wrote, "[D]efensive associations will have their judges, and their treaties as to the method of arbitration when two associations are on opposite sides of a case, and these tribunals of one or three professional judges will settle all cases where some one does not distinctly demand a jury. I suppose a case will almost never come before a jury except on appeal..."

Byington contended that trial by jury was a response to government and not a free market phenomenon. A court system that evolved within a "society where things are done on a business basis" would be arranged differently. In a free market evolution, the disadvantages of trial by jury would loom large: its expense, the unpredictability of its verdicts, the problem of dissenting defendants, the widespread tendency toward prejudice... For Byington, trial jury was not a "right" but a "wrong."

Conclusion.

Trial by jury presents interesting problems for those who champion individual rights. In one particular instance, a jury may be an effective weapon against oppressive government. In another, it may be a vehicle for unjust prejudices. In both cases, it is necessary to explain how juries derive the right to judge those who object to the process. How does a collective entity rightfully acquire such power over a dissenting individual?
Wendy McElroy.

~

[Response commences.]

Dear Wendy McElroy,

We respond to your writings. Authentic Trial by Jury provides the sole known mechanism for peaceably curtailing authoritarian government, upholding the innocent, protecting minorities, combating crime, delivering equal justice and maintaining just rule of law. Hence, it is of interest to ascertain whether the undeserved, pernicious public disparagement by you of this process, is the result of ignorance, or is premeditated propaganda intended to vitiate Trial by Jury to prevent it from bringing the oligarch's and statist's crimes of the abuse of power under the scrutiny, control and retribution of the general populace, an intended purpose of Trial by Jury.

When you have assimilated the following information you will realise that your expressed views are apocryphal and damaging. In the cause of truth and intellectual honesty, by which the worth of writers' work may be measured, we are sure you will want to put on the record a recantation and a thoroughgoing endorsement of the Trial by Jury as being the unique system indispensable to equal justice.

I. JUSTICE: THE NUB OF THE ISSUE.

"There is only one Trial by Jury. It is mere falsehood to call a procedure "trial by jury" if the accused and any of the matters under judgement are tried by someone other than the Jury. There is no process and no meaning to the words Trial by Jury other than that which the words themselves prescribe."
See Democracy Defined ISBN 9781902848228, by Kenn d'Oudney.

Trial by Jury consists of a specific process in which the jurors are required to undertake certain functions or duties. These duties are definitive of Trial by Jury. If the Juror's Duties are not performed by the Jurors, then Trial by Jury has not taken place.

If the Juror's Duties are in some way obscured from the jurors, denied, or otherwise prevented from occurring, or performed by someone other than the jurors, then, self-evidently, whatever procedure may have occurred, it is not Trial by Jury.

The onlooker first requires to know what the definitive duties of the Juror are which comprise Trial by Jury in order to be in a position to ascertain whether a procedure is a genuine Trial by Jury or some other performance which only superficially resembles it. Therefore, please note the Juror's Duties shown. 

It is untruthful knowingly to criticise a process which is not Trial by Jury, claiming that the said failings are those of the Trial by Jury.
AN ETERNAL CRITERION OF JUSTICE.

All societies govern by their Justice System. The power to punish carries with it ALL power. It remains a universal eternal criterion of justice that the validity and justice of laws and all acts of their enforcement require to be judged not by those who make and enforce the laws (government), but by those who voluntarily agree to abide by the laws (all the adult citizens). All those who do not uphold this tenet are then promoting unlawful rule by a tyrannical élite. Unwittingly, or for self-advantage, they serve despots, abet tyranny, and are the criminal enemies of freedom and equal justice.

Because the fairness and justice of the laws and all acts of law enforcement require to be judged by those who agree to abide by the laws (not by those who make and enforce the laws), according to natural law, common law, constitutional law, and the paramount requirement for Equal Justice, the Common Law Trial by Jury of ordinary adult citizens in which the jurors judge the justice of the law and every act of law enforcement is the only justice system which is legal and just everywhere, for all process of law, civil, criminal and fiscal.

That is why Common Law Trial by Jury is installed by all the legitimate constitutions as the sole justice system for all crimes (unimpeachable), civil, criminal and fiscal.   

THE WORD.

To preclude arbitrary (i.e., tyrannical; illegal) government and establish liberty and equal justice for all, the Hellenes created the society in which the common people have the power in Trial by Jury to judge the laws and overrule laws and measures enacted by the national assembly. The word the Hellenes gave to describe this state of society in which the citizens have control through the Trial by Jury to judge, make and enforce the laws and overrule the government, the wealthy and powerful, the aristocrats and all the people who sought to rule them, was demokratia, which translates into English as Democracy.

Democracy is founded on the Trial by Jury, derived from the Hellenic Athenian Constitution of government by Trial by Jury. Through its etymology, history and signification, the word democracy designates the constitutional justice system.

Naturally, people have the moral responsibility, the right and the duty to resist and suppress injustice wherever it occurs, and by whomsoever it is perpetrated, governments notwithstanding. By definition and in practice, Democracy requires that the People at all times retain the Supreme Power to annul injustices and the bad laws made by fallible politicians. This power is uniquely embodied in the Citizen-Juror's Duty in Trial by Jury: to judge the justice of every act of law enforcement, and to render the Not Guilty Verdict whenever conviction or punishment of the accused would be unfair, according to the juror's conscience.

Etymology (linguistic derivation). Hellenic Greek, Demokratia, Democracy.
demos, the people; kratos, sovereignty*, power; kratein, to rule.

*Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University. See Democracy Defined Essay EIS#10, "We the People and the Matter of Words," downloadable for free from the Democracy Defined Campaign Material webpage.
Chambers Dictionary, etymology, demos, the people; kratein, to rule;
MSN Encarta. Democracy, demos, the people; kratein, to rule;
etc.

From the etymology comes the definition: Democracy, the form of government in which the Sovereign Supreme Power is vested in the Common People; the emancipation and ethos of society produced by the power of Juries of ordinary citizens in Trial by Jury, to vet, make, decide and enforce the law; the people rule.

Trial by Jury is the mechanism which consummates the etymology of the word democracy. Constitutional Democracy is based on the sovereignty of the individual citizen-juror in legem terræ* common law Trial by Jury as the final arbiter of law and protection of the people from tyranny. In order to understand the meaning of the word, it is essential to know first that democracy embodies the people's control over government and law through the Trial by Jury. The people control the government, not the other way around. The people rule. This is democracy.
* terræ is pronounced terry, the æ as in Cæsar; seize.

Trial by Jury is the ONLY (peaceful) means known to mankind by which the Sovereign Supreme Power can be retained and responsibly lodged in the hands of ALL the people. Wheresoever Trial by Jury is emplaced and operating replicates the creation of democracy. By definition, the republic or constitutional (or symbolic) monarchy which institutes the Constitutional Common Law Trial by Jury Justice System is a democracy.

Regarding 'divisibility' of sovereignty: If the elected body imposes any law or regulation which is inconsistent with the People's sense of justice and fairness, it requires annulment by jurors in Trial by Jury, even by a single juror (unanimity required), who may be part of a minority race or group unfairly discriminated against by the law. In this manner, through the Trial by Jury, sovereignty not only resides with the people as a collective whole, but importantly, it is also embodied 'divisibly' with every adult citizen. Trial by Jury is thereby the active principle of democracy: the people rule. Explained by its etymology, history and signification, democracy can be paraphrased as "rule by the people through the Trial by Jury Justice System."

Viz. The word 'democracy' is widely abused and 'defined' incorrectly: Democracy is a state of society realised neither by referenda (mass voting for new laws), nor by suffrage (electoral voting for representatives), nor by the representatives' majorities' legislative voting. Electoral voting and majority rule neither create nor define democracy.

In stark contrast, democracy is a beneficent state of society wholly independent of the activities of popular, electoral or legislatorial voting: indeed, democracy's definitive, inherent attribute, the Trial by Jury, is the very means by which majorities and all the powerful elements within society can be held in check and subjected to the rule of law. Democracy is brought into being by common law Trial by Jury through which, not majorities, but the people rule.

Democracy does not operate on 'popularity' or power of the majority, or by referenda or statutes enacted by congress and executive. Instead, democracy prevails on behalf of minorities and even of individuals in establishing equal justice for ALL the people, demos, the people; not for only some.

It is far from correct to conceive of 'democracy' as only "a society of a small number of citizens who assemble and administer the government in person," for neither in Hellenic Greece nor in any other democracy is the assembly the final arbiter of law: that is the exclusive domain of the JURY.

In democratic parliamentary, congressional and soviétique processes everywhere, assemblage embodies the initial, preliminary procedure of government, wherein proposal, debate and voting, frame measures and 'enact' laws. Trial by Jury is the decisive superior stage: citizen-jurors are sovereign to judge the laws and causes in all their aspects, to decide whether, and if so, how, to give effect to their execution.

Within the society which is democratic, the assembly (local and national councils, congress, senate, parliament, etc.) remains of inferior authority to the decisions of juries in Trial by Jury. Trial by Jury establishes and defines democracy, sine qua non.

Within a democracy,
The Jury Comprises the Supreme Legislature and Judicature. 

THIS CASE RULING EXEMPLIFIES DEMOCRACY AT WORK:

"If the jury feels the law is unjust, we recognise the undisputed power of the jury to acquit even if its verdict is contrary to the law as given by the judge, and contrary to the evidence."

"If the jury feels that the law under which the defendant is accused is unjust, or that exigent circumstances justified the actions of the accused, or for any reason which appeals to their logic or passion, the jury has the power to acquit, and the courts must abide by that decision."
United States v. Moylan; U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, 1969.

Through its Trial by Jury Justice System  democracy excludes ochlocracy. This latter is another English word derived from Hellenic Greek which means direct rule by mobs, whether of brutish self-interested minorities or majorities. Democracy protects minorities from wilful majorities prevailing over them. Likewise, democracy does not allow the idea that rule by a minority can ever be legitimate.

In both cases, majority or minority rule, regardless of the actual percentages, what is described is one segment of the population, an élite, "ruling" over the rest, a ruled, suppressed underclass. Those scenarios describe an oligarchical governance which, by its nature, must trend towards partiality, injustice and tyranny. That is the reality which besets the people of the World today, and this is exactly the situation which democracy was brought into being to preclude.

CIVILISED HUMANKIND'S MODEL
AND ONLY LEGAL JUSTICE SYSTEM.

Trial by Jury is humankind's model justice system and the Foundation of Civilisation. That is to say, adoption of democratic Trial by Jury differentiates the civilised society from those which suffer the barbarity of despotism.

Whether a state is a monarchy, a theocracy or a republic, what converts it from a despotism (a tyrannical, uncivilised state) to demokratia, a democracy (the civilised state with Trial by Jury operating), is the instalment and implementation of the Trial by Jury Justice System through which the people rule. Application where fitting of the word democracy defines the theocracy as a democratic theocracy; or a republic as a democratic republic; i.e., a democracy, as opposed to a despotic republic such as Communist China which denies the people's right to the common law Trial by Jury Justice System. (The word democracy does not replace the word republic. Of course, the republic remains a republic.)

Only in societies where the common law Trial by Jury Justice System holds sway is democracy extant.

Wendy,
Above commences the dissection and exposure of your misconceptions whose dispersal by sites and organisations undermines real democracy, equal justice and liberty. 

II. THE EDUCATIONAL CAMPAIGN.

The Democracy Defined Members who are members of the legal profession have learnt from this educational campaign and point out that the universally applicable legem terræ common law and the proper workings of its Trial by Jury Justice System have not been taught at U.S. and U.K. law schools for a generation or more. The situation in regard to Equal Justice is still more degenerate in France, Germany and Continental Europe (EU).

The genuine Trial by Jury enables all sane adults to judge authoritatively what their laws and liberties are (by the means explained herein), so that the people retain all the liberties which they wish to enjoy. It is essential for citizens to be acquainted with common law and to understand how it is that it provides mankind's model justice system by which equal justice before the law is provided to all.

CRITERIA BY WHICH A JURY MAY BE CONSIDERED "INFORMED."

Wendy,
There is a serious shortcoming in what you (and others) call the "fully informed" jury "strategy." A jury is not at all "fully informed" simply because its members have been apprised of the Juror's power to annul unjust laws and prosecutions by pronouncing the Not Guilty Verdict.

The jury remains very far from "fully informed" without pre-trial education on the straightforward common law criteria required for ascertaining the presence or absence of guilt in people's motives and actions; and how, by the application of such criteria, annulment of prosecution becomes mandatory in cases where government intervenes criminally for venal or unjust purposes, and fabricates statutory 'offences' out of acts which are innocent in themselves and are not crimes. (See sections herein on malice aforethought, guilt, etc.) Without such rudimentary instruction, the Juror is at a complete loss as to how the weapon of annulment should be wielded.

Furthermore, to be "fully informed" additional thoroughgoing instruction must be given on what comprises the Juror's Duties; the limits of judicial and government authority in Trial by Jury; and the principles and purpose of the Trial by Jury.

Education on the common law rôle of the Juror is a crucial issue, not only in regard to the interests of justice and the accused, but also because the act of enforcement of an unjust statute constitutes crime per se: a malicious, judicable* felony (cf. tyranny; Crime against Humanity; the Nuremberg Precedent, etc.).
* Definition. judicable, that which may be tried by jury in a court of law.

If justice were to be done and the process to be a proper Trial by Jury, the Jurors' duty to judge on justice issues cannot be taught in isolation from the other definitive, simple but important tasks which jurors must perform. It is of little sense telling citizens about their power to annul unjust laws without teaching them how injustice and crime are identified; that is, the teaching of the simple common law criteria by which the law and every act of enforcement must be judged in order to ascertain whether such enforcement embodies an act of injustice which requires annulment-by-jury. 

Writing about the Juror, lawyer John Adams pointed out the following:
"It is not only his right but his duty to find the verdict according to his own best understanding, judgement and conscience, though in direct opposition to the direction of the court [i.e. the judge]."
John Adams, U.S. President. Yale Law Journal, 1964; 173. See more in DEMOCRACY DEFINED books.

Self-evidently, in order to use his or her understanding, judgement and conscience, the juror requires explanations as to his or her functions in the Trial by Jury itself. Jurors cannot be expected to know the criteria without specific instruction.

A compelling reason why jurors must be briefed on the criteria which justice demands the law be judged is because it is an easy matter for corrupt courts (judges) bent on serving tyranny, to pervert and obstruct the course of justice by actively misinforming the jurors, thereby preventing them from learning what their correct, definitive duties are. Jurors can be and indeed today are overawed and intimidated into complying with the incorrect requirements of such courts. In this way, jurors are induced to support arbitrary, illegitimate legislation, and/or manipulated to uphold judges' unjust or incompetent acts of enforcement. In such situations, justice and the genuine Trial by Jury are annihilated. 

Consider that, in direct breach of common law governing the rôle of jurors in Trial by Jury, jurors are today misdirected by judges not to let their (the jurors') opinion of the law to influence their decision; and that they must enforce the law as the judge dictates it to the jury.

In defiance of the correct common law procedures of Trial by Jury, today judges choose what evidence jurors are to see, denying jurors their duty to review all evidence and decide upon its admissibility; judges exclude evidence which disputes the legality or validity of the law and thereby exonerates defendants*; judges then instruct jurors as to how much weight they are to attach to the already-partial evidence. Even though citizens may occupy the jury-box, this process is not Trial by Jury: it is trial-by-judge. 
* Unlawfully excluded expert exonerative evidence includes documentary, legal, academic, economic, scientific, medical, technical, philosophical, and that which is based on grounds of equity. Today, judges tell jurors to consider only that evidence which he or she allows !
See THE REPORT ISBN 9781902848204 by Kenn d'Oudney & Joanna d'Oudney; endorsed by academics, doctors (of jurisprudence, medicine, psychiatry, homeopathy, philosophy, etc.) and judges (U.S. & U.K.), and has a Foreword written by a Nobel laureate former Official Adviser to the U.S. government.

Moreover, while defendants and counsel for the defence are forbidden by courts on pain of punishment and disbarment for contempt, from "disputing the justice, validity or legality of the law," in guilded but perfidious tones the prosecutor is permitted to harangue the jury with utter mendacity to persuade jurors that the worst of venal, inequitable, crime-engendering and hence inherently illegal legislation, is 'essential' and 'beneficial' to the people, and its enforcement absolutely must be upheld by the jury.

To discuss Trial by Jury and teach the Juror's essential Duties in any meaningful way, at least the following are prerequisite:

firstly, familiarity with the strict common law parameters governing the correct rôle of judges;

secondly, knowledge of the common law-prescribed the Rights, Duties, Powers and Procedures of jurors; 

thirdly, knowledge of the common law criteria by which to judge laws and actions to ascertain guilt and criminality; and

fourthly, understanding of the constitutionally-explicit purpose of Common Law Trial by Jury.

These factors form the edifice of Justice that is Trial by Jury. Yet, they are completely unknown to, or premeditatedly ignored by, you and the writers you have quoted, whose misconceived 'criticisms' are swiftly disposed of hereinafter. 
WHAT IS THE COMMON LAW ?

REFERENCES:
See TRIAL BY JURY: Its History, True Purpose and Modern Relevance ISBN 9781902848723 by d'Oudney & Spooner (U.S. lawyer).
See the constitutional, historical and law texts of Blackstone, Crabbe, Palgrave, Coke, Gilbert, Hume, Hallam, Stewart, Hale, et al.

Wendy,
It is necessary to ensure that you are fully cognisant of the profound differences which exist between natural law, common law, constitutional law --- and statute law. 
Legem terræ common law is comprised of the universally recognised tenets of justice derived from natural law and equity, which underpin civilisation. Natural law, justice and equity are timeless, universal concepts; not geographically constrained or limited to a set time or particular culture. Theists like to call natural law God's Law. 

Legem terræ common law embodies the universally accepted supreme secular morality which treats of and attempts to deter Crime. Through its Trial by Jury justice system, legem terræ common law protects, subjects and upholds all people equally. (If a measure does not achieve this, it is not common law.) Legem terræ common law is based on mankind's natural understanding of the universal Sense of Fairness (equity) which all sane adults share in common: that people should "do unto others as you would they do unto you."

From early childhood, all people literate or not, know it when injustices are committed against them, and they know likewise when they commit injustices to others.

When an unjust act is premeditated and hence malicious (malice aforethought; mens rea), common law defines this as Crime, be it of a lesser or greater degree, and 'Guilt' is definitively inherent in the act.
(Innocent or accidental acts which cause damage are treated of by civil law suits and the Trial by Jury apportions appropriate compensation.) 
THE RULE.

The superiority of natural law is witnessed, and confirmed, by the fact that the written law (statutes) must be interpreted by the natural. Because natural law and the Sense of Fairness are reliable and universal, the judiciary is governed by the rule that, for the interpretation and determining the meaning of the words comprising a written law, the language of statutes and constitutions shall be as closely as possible construed consistently with natural law. Whenever written law (statutes) cannot be construed consistently with natural law and justice, the written law infracts common law, rendering the statute abrogate and illegal. 

THE CENTRAL TENET
AND SOLE JUSTICE SYSTEM.

"Among the Gothic nations of modern Europe, the custom of deciding lawsuits by a jury seems to have prevailed universally."
See Millar's second volume of The Historical View of English Government, p. 296; & vol. 2, Palgrave's Rise and Progress of the English Commonwealth; pp. 147-8, etc.

Since time immemorial, Trial by Jury has been the central tenet and sole justice system of legem terræ common law, which comprises the true European Constitution derived and adopted by all the European Peoples.

Judging according to conscience (the faculty of the Sense of Fairness and of right and wrong), the Juror has the duty to pronounce the Not Guilty Verdict to annul any unjust law or act of enforcement. In this way, as the arbiter of law, the Juror personifies protection of the people from tyranny. 

The fact that the Citizen-Juror is sovereign and has the duty to judge on the justice of statutes and every act of the enforcement of law, places the Juror:

firstly, with judicial authority as common law judge supreme over the government and judiciary; and

secondly, establishes the common law as superior in jurisdiction over local and national government statutes and regulations.
(More follows on the rôle of government judges.) 
Although legem terræ common law can be written approximately, it is not 'a written law'. That law which is written down and enacted by parliaments and congresses becomes a statute: as such, it is not 'common law'. Indeed, it is one of the Juror's Duties definitive of Trial by Jury, to judge the justice of those laws which governments write down and seek to enforce on the People. Likewise, the judiciary is an arm of government. Whatever a judge 'rules', it is an act of and by government. It is not 'common law'.

Legem terræ common law is embodied as the judgements of the people as Jurors in each Trial by Jury: common law contains neither statutes of government politicians nor rulings or case law 'precedents' of the judiciary. Articles of universal legem terræ common law of the land prescribe and define:

~the Trial by Jury Justice System;
~the rôle of Jurors;
~the parameters limiting the rôle of judges and government within the justice system; and 
~recognise and establish that all persons in government without exception are subject and liable to prosecution for infraction of the strictures of Constitutional legem terræ common law.

For example, Magna Carta, the Great Charter Constitution's common law Precepts of Justice are derived from equity and natural law. They are timeless, perpetual and apply everywhere, in all times and places. This explains why the Great Charter Constitution is revered by the people who love justice and liberty as a monument to the achievement of Civilisation by mankind. 

In addition to the presidents, prime ministers and chief justices often quoted in their advocation of the superiority of Trial by Jury over all systems of law enforcement, the following is further impartial appraisal of the Great Charter and Trial by Jury, and, by implication, of the U.S. Constitution, which also bases its Justice System on the Trial by Jury. Legal historian and philosopher Sir James Mackintosh (a Scot) says of Magna Carta:

"To have produced it, to have preserved it, to have matured it, constitute the immortal claim of England on the esteem of Mankind. Her Bacons and Shakespeares, her Miltons and Newtons, with all the truth which they have revealed, and all the generous virtues which they have inspired, are of inferior value when compared with the subjection of men and their rulers to the principles of justice; if, indeed, it be not more true that these mighty spirits could not have been formed except under equal laws, nor roused to full activity without the influence of that spirit which the Great Charter breathed over their forefathers."
Chapter Three of Mackintosh's History of England. Emphasis added.

Magna Carta, 1215, is the exemplar, the paradigm of written constitutions and sets the standard by which the worth and legitimacy of all other constitutions are judged. The legem terræ articles of the Great Charter of English Liberties govern the entire population, government personnel and heads of state* notwithstanding.
*Article 61 of Magna Carta. See webpage One of the Democracy Defined Restoration Campaign Philosophy.

"Judicium parium," * the judgement of equals (i.e., pares, peers), is also known as the Common Law Trial by Jury defined and prescribed by Magna Carta as the sole justice system for all crimes, civil, criminal and fiscal, subsequently emplaced in every other legitimate constitution as the supreme written law by which the executive, legislature, judiciary and all citizens are legally bound.
* parium; Latin, pares, peers; social-equals. Magna Carta, Article 39.

As shown by the U.S. Constitution's co-author, Justice James Wilson, this history was known to the Founding Fathers (see Wilson's Works, Vol. 2). These universal principles of morality and Equal Justice were adopted by the U.S. Founding Fathers and framers of other Constitutions, who adopted English and pan-European Common Law Trial by Jury as the sole Justice System for all crimes (unimpeachable). The Common Law Trial by Jury comprises a complete constitution of itself, providing legal control by the people of the modus operandi of government. (See Juror's Duties which follow.)

Definitions. A 'constitution' is a code of laws and customs established by the people of a nation (as distinct from government and/or bureaucrats) for the guidance and the legal and lawful control of its government, by which to preclude tyranny and lawlessness; a constitution may be amended only at the behest and by the active participation of the great mass of the people (not by government); and, 'government' is comprised of the executive, the legislature and the judiciary. Being the legal means of controlling and limiting the power of government, a constitution is categorically not merely a document showing the hierarchical administration and departmental organisation of government, though it may also contain this.
Tyranny is defined as oppressive rule administered with injustice; the cruel and arbitrary use of authority.
Legem terræ is the law of the land, the people's common law, comprised of universally applicable, timeless supreme tenets of secular morality, justice and law; it prescribes and defines Trial by Jury for all causes, crimes, disputes and lawsuits. Common Law contains no statutes of governments and no rulings or precedents of judges.

Common law was feared and ruthlessly overruled by European monarchs and dictators, and is likewise being illegally denied by unthinking or despotic modern politicians.

III. THE TRIAL BY JURY JUSTICE SYSTEM:
THE JUROR'S DUTIES IN TRIAL BY JURY.

Wherever Trial by Jury takes place, be it in the U.S., the U.K., Australia, Canada, New Zealand and numerous other countries, it is DEFINITIVE of Trial by Jury that, after swearing to convict the guilty and acquit the innocent, in finding their Verdict,

the jurors judge:

~on the justice of the law, and annul, by pronouncing the Not Guilty Verdict, any law or act of enforcement which is deemed unfair or unjust according to the juror's conscience (i.e., sense of right and wrong); 

~in addition to the facts, and

~on the admissibility of evidence (evidence not being pre-selected or screened-out by government or judge and/or prosecutor).

Jurors must judge:

~that the accused acted with malice aforethought, i.e. mens rea, a premeditated malicious motive to find guilt ('guilt' is a characteristic inherent or absent in motives and actions: it cannot be ascribed by legislation);

~on the nature and gravity of the alleged offence; and where guilt is unanimously found,

~on mitigating circumstances if any (provocation; temptation; incitation); and

~set the sentence (with regard to its being fit and just).

For jurors not to do the above, or for someone other than the jurors to make any such decisions, is another process: call it 'trial-by-someone-else' if you will, or 'trial-by-judge' --- but this travesty cannot be defined as Trial BY JURY.

Q. When is a judge not a judge ?
A. When "the judge" is not a member of the jury.

Until the Latin-derived word 'juror' was adopted, jurors were actually called the judges, in recognition of their rôle. "...the judges, for so the jury were called..." See p. 55 of Crabbe's History of the English Law, etc. In Trial by Jury, the Foreman or woman of the jury is the principal presiding officer.

In Constitutional Common Law Trial by Jury:

~the jury has the power to call witnesses, advisers and appoint amicus curiæ;

~the common law rôle of convenors of courts ('judges') is as a convenor and for arranging security; advisory, inasmuch as this may be requested by the jury, of which advice jurors may take only what is by them adjudged appropriate; and for the arranging of re-trials and appeals if necessitated by circumstances (see Gilbert's History of the Common Pleas, pp. 57 & 70; and Vol. 1 of Palgrave's Rise and Progress of the English Commonwealth, p. 277; etc.);

~the 'judge' has no judicial rôle or authority: this precludes the possibility of judges inflicting injustices as is so often the case today;

~common law prescribes that for any charge or offence however serious or trivial (costs, contempt, etc. notwithstanding):

no person shall be dispossessed, fined, punished or in any way disadvantaged, except according to the lawful judgement and sentence of a unanimous jury of adult jurors randomly chosen according to common law principles, of his or her social-equals in the Common Law Trial by Jury. Id est et nota bene: government may only act against a person's rights, property, privacy or person according to the sentence of a jury pursuant to common law Trial by Jury.
(Cf. Article 39 of the Great Charter.)

~contempt charges laid on persons by juries or judges have to be tried as for any crime, that is, by jury;

~all evidence can be presented, and requires to be considered for its admissibility by the jurors --- especially if it reveals partiality, injustice, an unfounded nature, or venality in the law.

THE ILLEGALITY OF THE STATUS QUO.

Anyone acquainted with the process of law in the United States, Britain, Australia and elsewhere today, will see how far removed the practices of courts are from the ideals and legally binding stipulations of those nations' Constitutions. Today, every single one of the above requirements definitive of Trial by Jury (including judging on the facts of the case) is illegally forbidden, interfered with and/or obstructed by the 'judges'.

Labyrinthine deceits of modern usurpation inhabit the politicians' statute book, which bears no resemblance and pays no respect to universal common laws of truth, justice, liberty, and equality before the law. Common law is inserted into the Constitution to protect the people from government abuse of power. Common law legally binds government and controls the government's modus operandi. As distinct from despotism and barbarism, common law is the definitive basis of civilisation, democracy and legitimate government.

One best understands what is meant by the term Trial by Jury when one first knows the purpose for which it is constitutionally installed and what comprises the duties of the Juror.

IV. TRIAL BY JURY WAS CONSTITUTIONALLY EMPLACED FOR THE PURPOSE OF:
A.) not only to protect the people and deter common crimes by ascertaining guilt or innocence of the accused and where necessary apportioning retribution, but also

B.) of transcendent importance, as a barrier to protect the vast mass of innocent citizenry from the crimes of arbitrary government, i.e. unjust laws, tyranny; and from the prejudices and incompetence of fallible justices (judges). Trial by Jury enables the people to judge authoritatively what their laws and liberties are so that the people retain all the liberties which they wish to enjoy.

COMMON LAW DEFINES GUILT.
It is an unalterable principle of the common law's Trial by Jury that there can be no crime without there having been mens rea; that is, guilt or malice aforethought.

Guilt is a personal attribute or quality of the actor. It might not be involved in the act itself but guilt depends on the intent or motive with which the act was committed. The jury must find a person acted from a premeditated malicious motive, mens rea, in order to find him or her guilty. This is the issue the jury try: "guilt," or "not guilty."
 
Malice aforethought is the criterion by which common law defines guilt. Justice can only demand the finding of a guilty verdict and punishment where there has been malicious intent. There is neither moral justice nor political necessity (i.e., deterrent value) for punishing where there was no mens rea. (In the case of one person injuring another innocently or accidentally, the civil law suit and the Trial by Jury award appropriate compensation for damages.)
 
Constitutional Common law Trial by Jury makes malice aforethought or guilt a necessity preliminary to conviction. That is to say, malice aforethought or guilt may or may not be a component of a person's actions and motives: 'guilt' cannot be attributed to a person or imparted to an action simply by legislation.

This mechanism of the common law Trial by Jury protects (is intended to protect) individuals from governments which have ulterior criminal ends, and would seek to further them by making statutory 'offences' out of innocent acts which are not crimes. The mechanism can be effective only where the common law is not broken by courts and government, and where the Constitution is faithfully upheld: that is to say, where the Jurors' rights, duties, powers and functions are fulfilled, and these latter are not illegally denied or interfered with by judges or by politicians' legislative contraventions.

Naturally, people have the moral responsibility, the right and the duty to resist and suppress injustice wherever it occurs, and by whomsoever it is perpetrated, governments notwithstanding. The constitutional justice system requires that the People at all times retain the Supreme Power to annul injustices and the bad laws made by fallible politicians.

This Power is uniquely embodied in the Citizen-Juror's Duty in Trial by Jury: to judge the justice of every act of law enforcement, and to render the Not Guilty Verdict whenever conviction or punishment of the accused would be unfair, according to the juror's conscience.

COMMON LAW DEFINES CRIME AS INJUSTICE.

Since pre-historical time immemorial, juries of people from all backgrounds, some literate, others not, have agreed on and enforced common law in the Trial by Jury against injustices of all types, such as tyranny, murder, rape, bodily harm, mental cruelty, torture, robbery, theft, extortion, arbitrary dispossession (currently rife), usury, fraud and so on. Crime receives the universal condemnation of men and women in juries in all times and places.

Common law juries protect themselves and their fellow citizens continuously by enforcing the just laws with unanimity, whilst unjust or venal statutes and the enforcement of injustices by fallible judges are fittingly annulled by the pronouncing of the Not Guilty Verdict. It serves the interest of the individual citizen and the People at large to do so. That is to say, the People reliably enforce just laws; and, only laws which are just are those which should and must be enforced.

Even and especially the covert undiscovered felon called to serve on a jury, enforces the just laws, for not to do so would reveal his insalubrious character to the other jurors, thereby bringing on himself numerous malconsequences.

THE JUROR'S DUTY IS SIMPLE. 

It should be remembered that the Juror's duty is uncomplicated: 'guilt' of a crime can only be pronounced where the accused's act was a deliberate, premeditated one of malice aforethought. Similar judgements are the daily fact of life in commonplace human interactions. We make such appraisals frequently... "Is this person behaving in a way that is dishonest or malign?" "Is that person telling the truth?" "Why are they doing that?" "Are these people genuine?" (Again, note that in the case of one person injuring another innocently or accidentally, the civil law suit and the Trial by Jury award appropriate compensation for damages.) 

In the human experience, there are no guarantees that perfect justice will always be delivered by any system. Organised crime sometimes intervenes secretly to threaten the lives of judges or jurors and their families. However, the present distorted system (by which government deliberately breaches common law in numerous ways), presents judges as permanent targets vulnerable to intimidation, corruption and subornment, whereas the common law is superior in producing fair trials as shown by the following.

(i) Legislators and judges are exposed to all the temptations of money, fame and power, to induce them firstly, to overlook and deliberately disregard justice in the framing, passing, interpreting and enforcing of legislation; and secondly, to become actively biased between contesting litigants, causing politicians and judges to sell the rights and interests, and violate the liberties of the People. Jurors are exposed to none of these temptations.

(ii) At common law (which is routinely broken by courts nowadays), with the exception of criminals, lunatics, the sick and the aged, all adults are eligible to serve as jurors (no 'property' or other restrictive 'qualifications' are legal). Jurors must be randomly selected (by lot or chance) to ensure the disparity of views amongst the people is represented and in order to protect minorities.

(iii) According to common law (which is today flouted by the illegal modus operandi and administration of courts) the jurors' identities are kept unknown to the court and contesting parties until after they enter the jury-box, from which time they are strictly segregated without access to or from members of the public. 

(iv) If the Trial is to be fair, it is essential that it be by a jury of peers, the ordinary citizen's social equals, not by government or its representatives and employees. Hence, common law excludes from juries those who would prejudice proceedings, including:
A.) those who make statutes and regulations;
B.) those who could gain or benefit from the law or its enforcement; and
C.) those who are connected in some way with plaintiff or defendant, their objectivity possibly being compromised.

(v) The plaintiff, defendant and their counsel may make representations to the jurors (not the judge) against the inclusion of a particular citizen on the panel of jurors, on the above grounds, A, B and C. Common law governing jury selection ensures fairness: the final choice to retain or reject a potential juror is made by discussions and discreet votes of 'the triers' themselves (the fellow jurors); never by voir dire of prosecutors or convenors, i.e., the judges.

(vi) Jurors are not liable to bribery or intimidation, for they are unknown to the contesting parties until they come into the jury-box.

(vii) A 'majority' of the jurors is not 'a jury'. This is why in Constitutional Common Law Trial by Jury, 'guilt' can only be pronounced by a jury unanimous in its verdict.

Laws of human nature do not permit the supposition that twelve adult men and women taken indiscriminately from the mass of the people, will all prove dishonest. The common law Principles of Unanimity combined with Random Selection of Jurors in Trial by Jury, were understood and constitutionally established by King Alfred the Great (lawgiver), 871 - 899, in the following way: 

King Alfred had Justice (judge) Cadwine hanged because Cadwine had a man named Hackwy put to death by hanging, without the unanimity of the jury of twelve men. In this case, three jurors pronounced the Not Guilty verdict against nine. Cadwine removed the three and selected three others who would also pronounce 'guilt'.

Similarly, King Alfred had Justice Frebern hanged, because Frebern hanged a man called Harpin, when the jurors were still in doubt as to their verdict. Alfred established that when there is a doubt, it is in the interests of all people that justice should save rather than condemn.
See "The Mirror of Justices," compiled and published by Andrew Horne in Old French. The Mirror was written within a century after Magna Carta. It contains an account of Alfred's acts and judgements, thought to have been originally composed by him.
(viii) Jurors can hardly gain fame, power or money by giving erroneous decisions. Their office as juror is temporary. They know that when they have executed it, they must return to everyday life and they rely on all their rights being upheld by the judgements of jurors who will be their successors, and to whom they are an example.

(ix) This Trial by Jury Justice System is unique and inimitable: that is, it cannot be equalled by other legal arrangements. It places a curb on legislation the enforcement of which the Citizen-Juror adjudges would be unfair and tyrannical; and a Jury ensures to us -- what no other court does -- that first and indispensable requisite in a judicial tribunal: integrity.

(x) The powers of juries not only place a curb on the powers of legislators and judges, but also imply an imputation on their integrity, impartiality and trustworthiness. These are reasons why legislators and judges have harboured the most intense hatred for juries, and, so fast as they could do it without alerting the People to the loss of their liberties, have now destroyed juries' power to judge on justice issues, and with it the Trial by Jury.

V. EMANCIPATION.

The genuine common law must be differentiated from that which modern government has corrupted by legislation: a counterfeit which is "common law" in name only.
Common law does not include any statutes made by government or decisions made by judges. That is to say, common law is neither "government-made" nor "judge-made." It does not consist of case precedents (stare decisis), for in the Constitutional Trial by Jury juries decide the law and sentence, if any, in each individual case; or of judicial rulings, decisions or interpretations of statutes. When it is asserted to be any of the latter, this exemplifies government miseducation: usurpation and tyranny at work.

Throughout history, common law and Trial by Jury have been interfered with and suppressed by rogue governments, and resuscitated from time to time. Although the persons comprising governments can judicably abuse and infract common law, by definition and in practice, legem terræ common law cannot legally be 'changed', 'written' or 'superseded' by politicians, statute law or governments. 

Having established what common law is, one must note the extent to which the term common law has been abused: it is an opprobrium to misinform people that "common law" is a product of judges, stare decisis, and government courts. Worse though: it is utterly wrong to allow government to rob the people of their true common law and its power of emancipation. 

It is unconstitutional and tyrannically illegal to amend in effect the constitution's installation of common law and Trial by Jury by co-opting the common law by legislation into a body of law passed by congress or parliament, or made by judges. For this has been the means of burying common law and the authentic Trial by Jury, to enable government to obliterate the People's ability (peacefully) to decide their liberties for themselves, and to protect their lives, liberty and property from judicial corruption or incursions by any government bent on injustice. It moreover supplants humankind's model justice system of the Trial by Jury with the flawed, one-sided, inherently-illegal despotic system of trial-by-judge.
AN IRREVOCABLE PRINCIPLE OF COMMON LAW ON 'JUDGES'.

It is an irrevocable principle of the traditional pan-European, the British, Australian, New Zealand, Canadian and the American People's Common Law governing jurisprudence, and of Magna Carta*, that Trial shall exclusively be by Jury and that at Trial by Jury no judge or other officer appointed by government shall preside in criminal cases or lawsuits in which the government is also an interested party (called pleas of the crown in the U.K.). In such cases, without the observance of this prohibition there can be neither Trial by Jury, nor legal trial of any type.
*Article 53 of John's Charter and 17 of Henry's. 

The reasons for this are simple and pure: regarding convening officers ('judges') at trials, impartiality and integrity cannot be obtained (or realistically even expected) from people who enforce the laws who are selected by those who also make and maintain the laws. At the common law of the land, whether in civil or criminal cases, all officers who convene trials are chosen (elected) by the people. At common law, all convenors (justices; judges) are themselves subject to common law and are answerable to the common law tribunals of the people (i.e., Trial by Jury), not protected by élite privilege or impeachable by government and legislature. 
See Book 4 of Blackstone's Analysis of the Laws of England, p. 413; and Introduction to Gilbert's History of the Common Pleas, p. 2, note, & p. 4; etc.

Trial by Jury is so-named, for in democratic societies the trial of a citizen is by fellow citizens who comprise the Jury. Trial is not 'trial-by-government' which could never be fair where government is also one of the contesting parties. Judges themselves comprise a branch of government, and, they are in the pay of government. Police, prison service and above all, prosecutors and judges are employed to enforce governments' laws. Such personnel should never be asked, nor relied on, to decide impartially whether laws are just, for they must fulfil their task or face the fury of the government, their employer.

For the reasons given, government and judiciary are incompetent to require the conviction or punishment of any person for any offence whatever.

REFERENCES CONFIRMING COMMON LAW. 

Here are some references confirming legem terræ is the common law, and vice versa.

Sir Matthew Hale: "The common law is sometimes called, by way of eminence, lex terræ, as in the statute of Magna Carta, chap. [article] 29, where certainly the common law is principally intended by those words, aut per legem terræ; as appears by the exposition thereof in several subsequent statutes; and particularly in the statute of 28 Edward III, chap. 3, which is but an exposition and explanation of that statute. Sometimes it is called lex Angliæ, as in the statute of Merton, cap. 9, Nolumus leges Angliæ mutari,' etc. (We will that the laws of England be not changed.) Sometimes it is called lex et consuetudo regni (the law and custom of the kingdom); as in all commissions of oyer and terminer; and in the statutes of 18 Edward I, and de quo warranto, and divers others. But most commonly it is called the Common Law, or the Common Law of England; as in the statute Articuli super Chartas, chap. 15, in the statute 25 Edward III, chap. 5 (4) and infinite more records and statutes."
1 Hale's History of the Common Law, p. 128.

Crabbe: "It is admitted, on all hands, that it (Magna Carta) contains nothing but what was confirmatory of the common law, and the ancient usages of the realm, and is, properly speaking, only an enlargement of the charter of Henry I, and his successors."

Crabbe's History of the English Law, p. 127.

Blackstone: "It is agreed by all our historians that the Great Charter of King John was, for the most part, compiled from the ancient customs of the realm, or the laws of Edward the Confessor; by which they mean the old common law, which was established under our Saxon princes."
Blackstone's Introduction to the (Great) Charters; Blackstone's Law Tracts, p. 289.

Coke (a High Court judge): "The common law is the most general and ancient law of the realm. The common law appeareth in the statute of Magna Carta, and other ancient statutes (which for the most part are affirmations of the common law) in the original writs, in judicial records, and in our books of terms and years."
1 Coke's Institutes, p. 115.

Coke: "It (Magna Carta) was for the most part declaratory of the principal grounds of the fundamental laws of England. They (Magna Carta and Carta de Foresta) were, for the most part, but declarations of the ancient common laws of England, to the observation and keeping whereof the king was bound and sworn."
Preface to 2 Coke's Institutes, p. 3.

Nota Bene: To judge of law, i.e. its legal interpretation, decisions and rulings, precedent and application, the Jurors are the sole legal judges prescribed by constitution and common law. For example, see the following from Gilbert:

"This position" (that the matter of law was decided by the justices, but the matter of fact by the pares [peers]) "is wholly incompatible with the common law, for the Jurata [jury] were the sole judges both of the law and the fact."

Gilbert's History of the Common Pleas, note, p. 70.

The following statutes enacted in the century after Magna Carta, corroborate that our cherished American, European and English heritage, the Common Law Trial by Jury Constitutional Justice System, is, by statutes subsequently enacted, recognised as being Constitutional and is that of legem terrae, the people's law of the land, the common law:

"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."
Ruffhead's Statutes, 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 according to the law of the land (nisi per legem terrae); 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 or presentment of good and lawful people of the same neighbourhood [Trial by Jury] 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 brought in to 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."
Ruffhead's Statutes, 25, Edward III, Ch. 4. (1350)

See TRIAL BY JURY: Its History, True Purpose and Modern Relevance ISBN 9781902848723.
Also see the constitutional, historical and law texts of Blackstone, Crabbe, Palgrave, Coke, Gilbert, Hume, Hallam, Stewart, Turner, Hale, et al.
THE RUSE BY WHICH THE CORRUPT POLITICIAN, LAWYER AND JUDGE SEEK
TO OBLITERATE COMMON LAW AND SUBJUGATE THE PEOPLE TO AUTHORITARIAN RULE.

It has been the perjurious ploy of statist politicians, lawyers and judiciaries to try to miseducate (Western and other) people en masse into the false idea that 'law' derived from judicial precedents and rulings is 'common law', and 'common law' is 'made' by judges. 

Explained above, common law is supreme and derives from natural law, is expressed as the decisions of Juries in Trial by Jury, and contains no statutes of government nor rulings of judges. To say it "comes from judges" is a lie to which the enemies of equal justice , rights and liberty desperately want the people to succumb, in order for politicians and their judges stealthily to acquire arbitrary power to rule over the population. In this way, politicians seek to deprive the people of real common law which, ironically, defends the people from exactly such mendacious criminality by despotic government.

Only feloniously-inclined (or in some cases ignorant) people deny that legem terræ is the genuine constitutional common law which reigns supreme. Such a premeditated denial by state personnel is itself a criminal contravention of the Common Law and Constitution, and must always be suspected of being a judicable act of malice, mens rea.

The motive behind this lawlessness is that, if successful, it rewards its perpetrators with 'justification', albeit utterly false, for their claims to total power for the group atop of government. The ruse runs as follows: because the legislature can pass legislation which reverses or overrules those judge-made precedents which governments perjuriously misname as 'common law', by employing this abuse of the term 'common law', the statists come up with the warped speciosity that since government statutes can overrule what they misname 'common law' (which of course is not really common law), then assemblies, "parliament and congress must be sovereign over common law !" 

This usurpation aids the malicious villains in government who want to make people feel helpless and completely inundated by the engulfing tide of government-enforced regulation, insidious misinformation and arbitrary control.

The ignominious pretext also serves those unconscionable people, such as the many collaborators in the legal profession who, for self-interested motives of career and gain, choose to collude and participate in the Illegality of the Status Quo: i.e., the treason against the people and Constitution which is enacted by the executive, legislature and judiciary; the denial of proper Trial by Jury; and the obstruction of justice which pervades all trials and enforcement processes today. It is also effective with those who are duped into plain ignorance of what the People's supreme common law actually is.

EXCERPT follows from Part Seven of THE REPORT ISBN 9781902848204 by Kenn d'Oudney & Joanna d'Oudney.

"To a degree achieved by no other system of justice, Common Law Trial by Jury responds to Mankind's unceasing need: to enforce just laws; to uphold the innocent; to protect minorities; to nullify arbitrary government; and to reject injustice."

"The power of government consists merely of the physical force which it brings to its support-of moral force, it has none. Western governments have decomposed into despotisms of the most primitive type. The proof of this derives from the fact that within the annual avalanche of legislation, there is hardly a single new law, regulation or amendment to law which would be welcomed by the whole populace and uniformly enforced by juries. Control of all governments by the overriding judgements and arbitration of citizen-juries is as much needed today as for any of the corrupt absolute dictators and monarchs of history whose inhumanity it was that produced the People's response: the creation and installment of the Trial by Jury Justice System."

"Politicians and judges have destroyed Trial by Jury: politicians, because they do not want citizen-jurors to curtail their money-motivated legislation; judges, because these powers aggrandise them on a permanent basis (jurors serve only momentarily, by comparison); and also because, to remain judges they must reliably enforce the unjust dictates of politicians on whom they depend for careers and salaries, and to whom they are subject by impeachment. The results of this felony by judicable individuals in government are witnessed in mercenary special interest legislation with numerous detrimental effects to citizens."
[EXCERPT FROM THE REPORT ENDS.]
VI. Why Is the Citizen-Juror's Judgement on the Law
So Vital a Part of any Fair and Competent Justice System ?

See the following from 'Justice and the Constitution,' Part Seven of THE REPORT ISBN 9781902848204.

"In the governance of men and women, few, if any, matters are of greater consequence than the diligence and precision with which the judiciary observes and adheres to the definitive code of Common Law Trial by Jury, long established for the determination of an accused person's guilt or innocence."

"All governments, comprised as they are of human beings, are fallible. Governments are capable of passing bad or oppressive [i.e. illegal] legislation, and authorising and organising the enforcement of such bad laws. When Trial by Jury is disallowed or juries are limited in their rôle to decide guilt or innocence only on the evidence produced by the state [government] prosecutor of whether the accused had broken a law or not, any jury acting in this restricted way would not be able to protect good fellow citizens from unjust laws or the oppressions of the state. These 'show trials' are observed to take place in fascist, communist, and primitive tyrannies of totalitarian dictatorships, in countries which claim to be 'democratic'. They are traditionally scorned for the mockery of justice that they are when compared to the democratic standards of Trial by Jury."

"THE PURPOSE OF TRIAL BY JURY."

"People who judge authoritatively what their liberties are, retain all the liberties they wish to enjoy. This is Liberty. Trial by Jury is a trial by the People of the country, distinguished from a trial by the government. The intention of this trial is to enable the People to determine their liberties; because, if the government determines the People's liberties, then government has absolute power over the People; and this is the definition of despotism."

"In recognition of these immutable facts, Trial by Jury was adopted by the People as part of 'the law of the land' [i.e. common law] and installed subsequently by written constitutional law [Magna Carta; U.S. Constitution, etc.] as that tribunal which establishes permanently within the domain of the People, as opposed to the government, supreme judgement by citizen-jurors of the People's liberties. Simultaneously, by that singular act in Trial by Jury, jurors (not judges, the government's beholden employees) decide which behaviour is anti-social, forbidden, of criminal intent and punishable."

"In practice and by definition, government which denies its ordinary citizens the right to judge the justice of the laws and the manner of their enforcement on their fellow citizens at trial, is a despotism."

"Constitutions and governments which deny the Common Law Trial by Jury Justice System install constitutional despotism. Only as long as juries of ordinary citizens have the final say, government remains the servant, not the master, of the people."

"The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgement of his peers is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government, whether Nazi or Communist."
Sir Winston Churchill, Author, Chronicler, Historian, Philosopher, Nobel laureate for Literature;
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Emphases added.
Excerpt of telegram from Cairo to the U.K. Home Secretary on November the 21st, 1943.
[EXCERPT FROM THE REPORT ENDS.]
"...the judgement of his pares or peers [social-equals]," judicium parium suorum, is also known as Common Law Trial by Jury.

LAWS REQUIRE TO BE JUST.

The inscribed governmental statute laws require to be just and simple if they are to be met with unanimous approbation from juries. If explanation of a law is ever necessary and disputation over its fairness and hence its very legality arises, then, according to common law, this explication requires to be performed equally by plaintiff and defendant and/or defence and prosecution counsel, not exclusively by the convenor (judge). Juries decide on the justice, validity and applicability of laws in every act of enforcement.

Laws can be, and are, illegal for a variety reasons, such as their being inequitable [i.e. unfair], or unfounded [not founded in truth, or, technically incorrect], or prejudiced in favour of one party to the contravention of the human rights or legal interests of another. Such tyrannical 'laws' are unlawful. 

COMMON LAW TRIALS BY JURY DO NOT DRAG ON... 

With the Jury deciding on the admissibility of the evidence and supervising the process, Trial by Jury brings justice which is fair, swift and sure. Prosecution counsel must marshal the evidence to present an undelayed, forthright, straightforward comprehensible case; not the protracted lucrative charade in which lawyers feign and wallow today. 

Jurors involved in Jury Duty embody authority of the country and its people: they are properly respected and compensated.

CRIME AND LITIGATION ARE DIMINISHED.

Brutish intrusions by the state and its personnel into innocent citizens' lives are subject to prosecution and, where appropriate, to just retribution.

The mass of partisan, inequitable and venal legislation (extant today), is duly annulled, unenforceable and generally expunged. Hence, the number of prosecutions is greatly reduced.

Vexatious regulations are obliterated; life, liberty, property and rights are held in the hands of the people themselves (not subject to arbitrary government intervention). Crime and litigation in the society run by ultimate rule of the people deciding the law as Jurors, are significantly diminished.

As a cause, Trial by Jury gives rise to numerous far-reaching beneficial effects, creating a salutary ethos absent in societies bereft of Trial by Jury. Examples:

In Trials by Jury, the disgraceful enforcement of tyrannical, bad and venal laws is terminated; the people assume responsibility for protecting themselves and their society by punishing and deterring acts of injustice and malice aforethought.

Apart from lunatics, the sick, the aged and convicted criminals, according to common law all adults are eligible to serve as jurors. (Property ownership and other invented 'qualifications' to serve as a juror are illegal.) Hence, from childhood every person in a democracy is profoundly affected by this healthy culture. Crime is rare in the society where the citizen is brought up knowing that justice is the duty of, and equally available to, every adult.

For the aforegoing reasons Trial by Jury reduces overall the costs to government (the taxpayer) of the criminal justice system, demonstrating Byington's objections to the 'expense' of Trial by Jury to be without foundation. 

The practice supported by Byington and Herben of placing matters before "experts," arbitrators, judge or judges, particularly in money and contract cases, not only invites corruption, but also denies that crucial decision to be made only by disinterested jurors, on malice aforethought with which these cases are replete. Breach of contract is seldom truly innocent, an act without malice. What may be 'arbitrated' upon or treated today as a 'civil action' may well be judged by a jury to be criminal.

Likewise, fiscal issues require to be decided always and only by citizen-juries, for the power to remove a person's money, goods or property in the name of the "collective interest" is a longstanding statist deception, the obfuscation of daylight robbery: the centuries old iniquity of tyrants.

Bringing back the citizens into courtroom decisions regarding fiscal, contract and economic (money) matters (viz. usurious banking practices; fraudulent fractional reserve lending) curtails governments' vast waste of resources; reduces taxation; extirpates corruption; eliminates finance houses and corporations' owners' and the judiciary's present inequitable and unconstitutional stranglehold on power; and re-asserts the pre-eminence of the due authority and Will of the People in taxation, economic and socio-political matters. 

VII. RESTORATION... The Democracy Defined Campaign.

Consider how restoration of the constitutional common law governing Trial by Jury protects the citizens' inherent, inalienable, eternal rights to liberty and equal justice, as follows:

Firstly, to the right to a (genuine) Trial by Jury in defence; and...

...in Common Law Trial by Jury, the jury operates on the presumption of innocence and is called upon to review the evidence presented by the plaintiff, which the accused may refute. 

Defence likewise may present exonerative evidence and, furthermore, instigate a Counter Plaint or charge, presenting the evidence for the jury's consideration as to whether aspects of the law render its enforcement invalid or unjust; that the prosecution is malicious or frivolous, which wastes the jurors' (the court's) time and constitutes a crime, per se.

So, the defence may be simultaneously suing the prosecution for damages, and instigating a criminal trial of the plaintiff. The jury is emplaced to try (judge) the causes concurrently. By this means, the Constitutional Common Law Trial by Jury Justice System discourages or pre-empts malicious private or government prosecutions; and moreover, genuine Trial by Jury swiftly leads to the expunction of inequitable (unjust), bad, arbitrary or unwanted legislation and vexatious regulations.

Secondly, the ordinary citizen's right to place the evidence in a cost-free arraignment of wrongdoer/s (regardless of the 'importance' or position of the accused) in front of fellow citizen-jurors in a Trial by Jury. No one is above the common law of the land. No one is 'immune'.

It is the job of elected representatives to administer the country in a way that does not disadvantage any of its people. Humans err. The purpose of the Trial by Jury is to protect the people from crime; that is, both from common crime and the government crimes which otherwise take place with impunity as a result of the human fallibilities of politicians and the judiciary. It is the absolute duty of the common law juror to annul legislation whenever it reflects the slightest self-interest of a partisan group. 

Whereas most people would prefer to pursue other occupations, in a democracy the representatives' (congressmen and women, MPs, etc.) duty is to take care of the uncontroversial nuts and bolts of day-to-day administration of a society. Categorically, they are not there to promote partisan interests. That activity constitutes crime per se. The common law Trial by Jury exists to bring such corrupt administrators to account. There is no statutory congressional/ parliamentary or judicial 'immunity' for those perpetrating venal or unjust activities, whatever their high place in society. That is, there is no immunity for anyone involved in the commission of criminal acts. Everyone is answerable to the tenets of legem terræ common law.

THE CITIZENS' PRIVATE PROSECUTIONS.

Trial by Jury is too often thought of by people only as a situation wherein the accused defends him or herself, usually from the government's prosecution. As distinguished from the despot's charade which takes the place of Trial by Jury in the courtroom today, the Constitutional Common Law Trial by Jury is much more than that. Real Trial by Jury is a supreme weapon in the hands of the people, enabling them peacefully to foil would-be tyrants, and to obliterate crime-engendering inherently illegal laws and legislatorial majorities' self-interested, venal legislation. (Viz., Article 61: the timeless moral and legal supremacy of universal legem terræ common law embodied into Magna Carta.).

Private prosecution methodologically achieves the expunction of arbitrary, illegal laws in the following way:

Plaintiff(s)' direct private prosecution in a petit Trial by Jury precludes the (alternative) process of the Grand Jury.

NOTE. Following their review of evidence presented to them, when Grand Juries determine an indictable offence has been committed, the government prosecution service undertakes to prosecute the case in a Trial by Jury. However, this would be unsatisfactory in an instance where evidence is presented as to criminal machinations by government politicians, bureaucrats and judges. It would be preposterous to ask or expect government personnel and employees to prosecute their masters (that is, their employers) and colleagues effectively. This would not only be unrealistic, but also wholly inadequate to the needs of a population seeking to protect itself from tyrannical misgovernment and politicians' corrupt legislation, as is judicably enforced by today's government (as opposed to common law) 'judges'. Hence, in this cause, not the grand jury, but only the private prosecution in Trial by Jury serves the needs of justice. 

A principle of legem terræ, the universal common law, is that no judgement (cf. sentence) can be valid against a party's goods or person, including a judgement for costs, unless it be a judgement rendered by a jury following the common law Trial by Jury.

Where the randomly-selected jury finds unanimously that a frivolous or malicious charge has been brought, the plaintiff(s) are liable for costs and damages. Such a prospect discourages or eliminates unjustifiable prosecutions. However, where multiple or numerous citizens unite together as co-plaintiffs in the same prosecution, this has the effect of establishing that their grievance is genuine and that the action taken by them of bringing racketeering members of the government to trial embodies their fulfilment of a conscientious public obligation or duty. This precludes unanimous judgements by juries against the plaintiffs for costs, though this does not necessarily establish the guilt of the nominated defendant/s. 

In a single or a succession of Trial(s) by Jury throughout the land, the presenting of evidence establishing the collusion of politicians and government bureaucrats in premeditated criminal acts under the guise of the framing and passing of specified 'legislation' which the jury finds to be: criminogenic (crime-producing and thus inherently illegal); and/or inequitable; partial; partisan; or venal; or in any way un-Constitutional or against the public interest, renders void that legislation and removes from public office those found guilty of the behaviour. Those persons who have suffered persecution under such unfounded 'laws' qualify for Amnesty and compensatory Restitution (as for other Wrongful Prosecution).

As ever, the degree of guilt (malice aforethought; mens rea) discerned by the jurors in the criminality of the accused goes towards the determining by the jury of their sentence. (Self-evidently, government personnel may not judge in their own cause and hence are automatically deprived of any privilege or power to moderate such sentences or to pardon.) Defendants are entitled to appeal against conviction or sentence and for re-Trial by a new Jury. 

TRIAL BY JURY PROTECTS THE PEOPLE
FROM DESPOTISM, VILLAINY AND HOLOCAUST.

As described above, through Trial by Jury the people at large peacefully protect themselves from despotism, villainy and potential holocaust. They re-establish the due primacy of the universal natural and common law and justice over statute law; punish and deter crime; resume their rightful responsible rôle to police their society; nurture the values of equal justice and respect for the rights of others; fulfil the purpose of Trial by Jury to eliminate crime; and they uphold the Constitution. The duplicitous legislation by which wealth and/or hegemony accrues to particular preferred people or segments of society is thus rapidly and permanently annihilated. 

The consummation of the purpose of Trial by Jury constitutes a reason explaining why judges and politicians are active in denying and destroying Constitutional Trial by Jury: the criminally corrupt reveal themselves as such by their very antithesis to Trial by Jury.

Citizen-Juries educated and instructed to judge on the justice of law and its enforcement, can be relied upon to protect people from the state (i.e. government), when the state breaches correct behaviour in attempting to enforce injustices. It is for this reason that those who stand to gain money and/or power from tyranny by the imposition of unjust 'laws', regard the Trial by Jury as an obstacle to be undermined and destroyed.

When the fact of all the people having equal and ultimate control over the enforcement of laws in the Trial by Jury is a firmly established social reality, it makes the passing of tyrannical legislation by national assemblies a fruitless exercise predestined to failure. Tyranny is nipped in the bud.

The immediate result of Restoration of the Constitutional Common Law Trial by Jury Justice System would be the curtailment of politicians' and their beholden servitors, the judges', undue powers; and the thorough reversal of their pernicious acts by which World Civilisation is currently being discreetly dismantled to establish the few select bank-owners' supreme dictatorship through their 'one world government'; the 'new world order'.
See Essay EIS#15 THE CRIMES OF USURY AND FRACTIONAL RESERVE LENDING.

With Trial by Jury holding sway, laws count for naught unless they be just. Thus, the People are served, not ruled, by governments. Such government then cannot but embody truly democratic ideals and civilised aspirations. This type of government attracts, and is comprised of, people representing the citizens' interests; and oppressing none; and no tyrant can attain power. 

At the behest of juries of ordinary citizens, the state is constrained into enforcing only just principles and democratic attitudes which accord with the People's judgement in Trials by Jury, such as those reflecting common law values: fraternity, liberty, egalitarianism, progress and justice.

By the diligent upholding of this Constitution, all tyranny is pre-empted. Not only are bureaucratic and fiscal injustices eliminated, but tyrants, great and petty, are emasculated. This enforceable democratic control by the People was constitutionally emplaced to extend equally over the historic and current 'religious' tyrannies, as to secular, which are suffered under man's inhumanity to man.

Societies founded upon the Common Law Trial by Jury Justice System respond to, but cannot initiate, aggression, including wars so-defined. If Trial by Jury had remained operating throughout the European nations, whence it originated, the Hohenzollern, Hitler and Stalin tyrannies would have been truncated, and the Holocaust and both World Wars averted.

Only through RESTORATION and UNIVERSAL ADOPTION of the nonpareil constitution, id est, the Constitutional Common Law Trial by Jury Justice System, does pacific elimination worldwide of tyrannies, the Crimes against Humanity by politicians and governments, and permanent relative peace on Earth become feasible.

Wendy,
As we shall see, untrustworthy at best, of outright criminal intent at worst, are those who, instead of restoring Common Law Trial by Jury to its true form, would discard it altogether. 

VIII. TO JUDGE THE LAW IS MANDATORY. 

Wendy,
It seems you raise discussion on Annulment-by-Jury (cf. nullification) as if it were a 'controversial' issue. For the best of reasons it is far from that...

Citizens' authoritative judgement on the justice of law and every act of its enforcement is not only morally obligatory but it is also legally imperative. At all times, every adult person has the moral responsibility to suppress injustice. Every act of injustice is a common law crime, whether committed by private citizens or by the state (tyranny). Citizens and government employees alike are accountable for their actions. See Crime Against Humanity; the Nuremberg Precedent; etc., and ratified Principles, U.N. Resolution, 12-10-1946:

PRINCIPLE I: "Any person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible and liable to punishment."

PRINCIPLE II: "The fact that internal law does not impose a penalty for an act which constitutes a crime under international law does not release the person who committed the act from responsibility under international law."

PRINCIPLE III: "The fact that a person who committed an act which constitutes a crime under international law acted as Head of State or responsible government official does not relieve him from responsibility under international law."

PRINCIPLE IV: "The fact that a person acted pursuant to the order of his government or a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him."

Whether by participation in the enforcement of arbitrary legislation, or from the following of direct orders, being party to the execution of injustice makes the person involved liable to punishment for a grave criminal offence (cf. Crime Against Humanity).

It constitutes a judicable* infraction of the supreme natural and common law whenever judges, court rules, political interventions or any factors impede, discourage or prevent citizens making such judgements on the law and the acts of its enforcement. The common law Trial by Jury is indispensable for the purpose of making such judgements: the denial by governments (politicians) of the Trial by Jury is illegal, uncivilised, and embodies the punishable extremes of lawlessness and despotism.
* Definition. judicable, that which may be tried by jury in a court of law.

In the Trial by Jury context, the moral choice quoted above is ALWAYS "possible;" it is definitively obligatory: the "choice" is mandatory.

De jure, under pain of penalisation, all those involved at every stage of the creation, maintenance and enforcement of law, including jurors, must make the moral choice and judge the law, and accordingly take the appropriate action or make the apposite decision.

ANNULMENT-BY-JURY (NULLIFICATION).

The origins of Trial by Jury date from the prehistorical mists of antiquity. It is the most natural, intelligent and civilised of human responses both to common crimes, and those which are committed in the name of governance. The jurors' duty to do justice and the Right of Juries to find the Verdict according to the juror's convictions, are amongst the aspects which define the Trial as being by Jury (as opposed to it being trial by government or trial-by-judge).

Self-evidently, Trial by Jury cannot be said to have taken place without the function of judging on justice issues having been undertaken by the jurors. 
CHIEF JUSTICE VAUGHAN'S RULING.

Wendy,
In addition to all the aforegoing, the following also shows why it is a misstatement of fact for you to say "Jury nullification has been established in common law since 1670." This quotation from your article reveals your misunderstanding of the term 'common law' (or its calculated misuse as in the ruse described above ?) and explains much about your misconstrued ideas on Trial by Jury.

The duty to annul unjust law enforcement was established actually millennia before the Penn and Mead trial in 1670.

To begin with, note that legem terræ is common law, and vice versa (see authorities quoted above).

The power, right and duty of jurors to decide the verdict according to their convictions and conscience has been established in common law Trial by Jury since time immemorial --- at least since the beginnings of the Trial by Jury Justice System, because the juror's just annulment of the enforcement of bad governance and unjust laws, the prejudices or incompetence of judges, and of wrongful prosecutions, is a fundamental purpose and definitive part of Trial by Jury itself. Consider the following.

The Hellenic Athenian Constitution of government by Trial by Jury was a conspicuous landmark in human history for constitutionally establishing this mode of justice. The aristocrat Cleisthenes it is who must be credited with the creation of mankind's first democracy in 508/7 B.C.E. He brought acknowledgement to the need to spread empowerment throughout society to promote equal justice, liberty, peace and prosperity, and devolved power all the way down to the poorest (male) citizens, the thetes, by recognising rights, exousia.

Exousia rights included the right to attend, debate and vote in the national assembly on laws and measures (referenda); the right of the accused to a Trial by Jury; and, crucially, the empowerment of citizens by bestowing on them judicial authority in Trial by Jury in which laws and measures passed by legislatorial majorities in the assembly could be judged, overruled and annulled * whenever this was deemed by the Jurors necessary to serve justice, liberty, and the interests of the people.
*See Justice James Wilson, 2, Works, chap. VI.

This was the illustrious, democratic Athens which successfully resisted the Persian invasions of 490 and 480/79 at the battles of Marathon and Salamis; that built the Parthenon; set enduring standards in art and architecture; developed sciences including those of medicine, mathematics and astronomy; that proffered a stage to Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides and Aristophanes; and laid the foundations of Western rational and critical thought. Hellenic Greece of the Constitution of government by Trial by Jury received from the Athenians the defining epithet, Democracy.
The historical facts about Democracy in Hellenic Greece and everywhere else, are that it was a virile system and devotedly supported by the mass of just, civilised, peace and freedom-loving people. The democratic state based on the Constitution of government by the Trial by Jury, survived two attempts to overthrow it by wealthy aristocrats and oligarchs with their mercenaries and slaves. The wealthiest sought total power. These bloody coups were efforts at imposing an authoritarian state which immediately targeted for suppression the citizens' rights in Trial by Jury by which ordinary people were able to judge and annul any unjust laws and reject the enforcement of injustices. Notably, one of these ultimately failing coups which nevertheless resulted in much loss of innocent life, was inspired by the maleficent Socrates*.
*For information about Plato's book on the prototypical 'fascist' state, The Republic, adopted as the official doctrine of Adolf Hitler's National Socialist (NAZI) Party, and on Socrates and Plato, the original traitors to Democracy, see Essay EIS#10, "We the People and the Matter of Words," freely downloadable from the Democracy Defined Campaign Material webpage. 

Democratic free Athens eventually only succumbed because of the mighty invasion of the Macedonian, Alexander the Great (conqueror), whose far-flung martial exploits set back the socio-political development of mankind.

Later, England's King Alfred, 871 - 899, upheld the right and duty of jurors to find the verdict according to their judgement; see section (vii) above in "The Juror's Duty Is Simple."
Significantly, Conrad, Emperor of Germany, installed Trial by Jury two centuries before Magna Carta (see 3, Blackstone, p. 350).

From beyond the Urals to the Atlantic, from the Arctic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea, the Trial by Jury was adopted throughout all the nations of Europe, and subsequently by the (post) colonial nations. Constitutional Common Law Trial by Jury is the true pan-European and pan-Occidental Constitution and Justice System.

Similarly, and later still in 1215, Article 39 of Magna Carta's first of many enactments and ratifications affirmed that government may only proceed with acts of enforcement, following, and according to, the judgement and sentence of the peers (jurors). The Duty of Jurors to decide the verdict according to their convictions was firmly established. 

Millar, speaking of the times of King Edward the First, 1272-1307, shows how the jurors are the judges in Trial by Jury:

"What is called the petty jury was therefore introduced into these tribunals (the King's Bench, the Common Pleas, and the Exchequer) as well as into their auxiliary courts employed to distribute justice in the circuits; and was thus rendered essentially necessary in determining causes of every sort, whether civil, criminal, or fiscal."
See Millar's second volume of The Historical View of English Government, vol. 2, p. 293-4.

Statutes of 'attaint' dating from as early as the Twelfth Century were from time to time tyrannically utilised to punish the pronouncing by jurors of annulment verdicts which displeased government, prosecutors and judges. Later still, Star Chamber and other well-known cases show that jurors were wont to annul and dismiss unjust prosecutions and find the verdicts according to their conscience and convictions: this was jurors' natural, correct and established activity.

The criminal acts and attaint of despotic governments which interfered in this definitive annulment function of Juries are evidence to the fact that the right and duty of jurors to decide the verdict according to their beliefs and convictions were always established in common law Trial by Jury and continuously put into practice. These issues and events long predate the Penn and Mead trial of 1670.
Government does not 'grant' or 'bestow' the right and power to do justice: upholding justice is the inherent duty of every citizen. Common law recognises and provides that the people have an eternal obligation to enforce common law and protect themselves from lawlessness and injustices inflicted by criminals who acquire positions of power or government. Common law (expressed as Article 61 of Magna Carta), installs the People as the legal force to police, indict, punish and otherwise obtain redress. 

Rather than "establishing" the duty and right of Jurors to decide the verdict according to their convictions (as the wording goes on the Old Bailey Commemorative Plaque), in fact, Chief Justice Vaughan's ruling merely recognised this perpetually requisite, definitive and ongoing function. Chief Justice Vaughan's ruling explains how it is never possible for those outside the jury to ascertain by what private thoughts or evidence a Juror or Jurors may decide that the verdict of Not Guilty is the only one which is just and appropriate.

Any law student worth his salt knows this exemplary historic ruling and understands why this must be so. Whilst outside of the jury situation, adults behave (whether fairly to others or not) according to what they consider to be in their interests; within the jury, when disinterested citizens know the facts from which a verdict is to be inferred, they arrive at the same conclusion or verdict unless there is reasonable doubt ceded by the inconclusive nature of the evidence, or injustice in the law or the act of its enforcement. One of the beauties of authentic Common Law Trial by Jury is the predictability of its verdicts (Byington's hollow dissent notwithstanding).

Indeed, this it is which explains why courts (judges) today breach Trial by Jury's common law governing impartial jury selection (which is as described above) and go out of their way to 'select' jurors (voir dire) who will produce the verdict by which government prosecutors can enforce venal and otherwise illegal legislation which devastates democracy, denies equal justice and incarcerates multitudes of innocent citizens: as noted, no malice aforethought; no mens rea: NOT GUILTY...

Byington's and others' writings might 'entertain' the unthinking, but they are of no value as analysis, and they wildly and irresponsibly misrepresent Trial by Jury. They miseducate the uninformed, and erode public support for the restoration of the authentic Common Law Justice System. As a result, Wendy, your writings contribute towards the visibly growing present-day oligarchs' dictatorship, and to the current unconstitutional, illegal and systematic destruction of Western Civilisation, democracy, justice and liberty. 

Byington rails in feigned righteous indignation about an only assumed 'racial prejudice' in the context of some jurors' refusal to convict and others' apparent willingness to condemn; but, however firm the evidence and facts of a case appear to be on the surface to an outsider, unless one is privy to the innermost thoughts, private evidence and knowledge of every juror in such cases, then Byington and others of his ilk are guilty of speculation as idle and worthless as it is emotive (cf. Chief Justice Vaughan's reasoning).

Wendy,
Assumptions disputing the validity of verdicts are not proven by mere recitation anew of those same unfounded conjectures; nor by deriving further assumptions from the original unproven diatribes. Byington's comments embody the most ignorant, damaging type of prejudice of which he accuses others. There is nothing other than flighty emotion in his attacks on verdicts which one can never know or truly say were anything other than deserved.

The Trial by Jury cannot be shown to be improved on by trial-by-judge, for, if racial prejudice were a concern relevant to the outcome of a process, the judge is no less likely to be racially or otherwise prejudiced than anyone else in society.

Moreover, unlike the randomly chosen and then segregated jurors, the judge is permanently open to approach and corruption by temptation or fear. In a trial-by-judge there is nothing in the courtroom that can constrain the crooked judge from running amok. The defendant can do nothing in the face of a judge's prejudices and the tendency of other judges to back the decisions of the first.

By contrast, in the real Trial by Jury the innocent accused requires but one of twelve common law judges (the jurors), to protect him or her from injustice.

Turning to Byington's objection to annulment-by-jury owing to "the need for certainty," citing publishers' concerns regarding obscenity: this is completely vacuous. In reality, a publisher would never object to a jury annulling a draconian censorship law when it allows that publisher to go scot free ! Whereas, if it were left to the system of trial-by-judge, the judge is bound to enforce the law however it stands (i.e., as he thinks its interpretation applies) and there is no escape from that for the publisher.

Again, if Byington doubts there be 'certainty' in the law itself, then it would be virtually impossible to find sure grounds for prosecution, and even with the most incompetent presentation of defence, the obtainment of a unanimous 'guilty' verdict from a jury would be out of the question.

Then, yet again, where the law is certain on a point of censorship, with possible annulment in mind, whereas the judge is bound to enforce the law, the jury can decide on whether enforcement of such a law would be just and choose to annul it --- bearing in mind that public display of the musical arts, comic farce and even classic plays have all in their time been and even today still are banned by some tyrannical governments. Following a Trial by Jury in which twelve randomly chosen adult men and women unanimously find that a person has acted with malice aforethought to the degree he should be punished, then that verdict and the jury's sentence constitute the law in that case; with the proviso that common law recognises the right to re-Trial by Jury; appeals; and that the government has the power to moderate the sentence or even pardon (on legal grounds).

Byington naïvely skirts around the real justice issues --- and entirely evades mentioning the purpose of Trial by Jury, which, by annulment, would give proper protection to publishers from unfair measures: but does Byington even know it ? From his writing, he reveals nothing of the true form of Trial by Jury. 

Byington disparages a process which is actually the trial-by-judge, for in genuine Trial by Jury, the jurors can be brought by defence counsel and defendant to consider that injustice flourishes in that society "Where they burn books, there they also burn people." Byington avoids mentioning the long woeful historical experience of the corrupt, one-sided trial-by-judge. In derogating what he calls "trial by jury," he is unaware (or does not wish to make people aware) that his preferred trial-by-judge system is the tyrant's long-proven instrument of terror, carnality and extortion; the ruin and termination of the lives, liberty and happiness of men and women beyond number; of the enslavement of whole peoples and generations by judges supporting, maintaining and enforcing systems of injustice which produce misery, crime, strife, war, civil war and holocaust, repeated generation after generation... all for want of common law Trial by Jury. 

Judged by Adolph Herben's and Byington's contributions to the ill-informed 'debate' which took place in Liberty journal, nothing was proposed that could be said to have unveiled a worthy alternative to, or in any factual way devalued Trial by Jury. 

IX. CONSTITUTIONAL DESPOTISM: TRIAL-BY-JUDGE.

Current affairs and history relate a chilling litany of the judiciary's desertion of the principles of equity and justice in complacent careers of depraved cruel enforcement of injustices on citizens innocent of any crime (remember: no malice aforethought, no mens rea: NOT GUILTY).

Posing with a veneer of 'culture', judges past and present nevertheless 'justify' and enforce the most abject of legislation, e.g., Nürnberg Race Laws; complicity in the establishing of an agenda biased in favour of particular individuals against the legitimate interests of others; primitive 'religious' oppressions; massively crime-generating and thus inherently illegal commodity 'prohibitions'; etc. This is the interminable calamity of governments' trial-by-judge.

Trial-by-judge is the National Socialist (NAZI), Stalinist, Soviet, fascist and communist system of judicial oppression, by which primitive tyranny thrives; massive injustices are routinely enforced on innocent people; and citizens are intentionally put into permanent fear and servitude. 

Complacent, insouciant, ignorant servile populations of Westerners, Americans, British, Europeans, New Zealanders, Canadians and Australians, have allowed antidemocratic politicians to strip them of their legal protections which are constitutionally established as the Juror's Powers, Rights and Duties in Trial by Jury. People have permitted institutionalisation of despotic attitudes. Oppression has taken root and become widespread even in the former great bastions of democracy.

Wendy,
Byington, Herben and today's 'critics' of the charade they incorrectly claim to be "trial by jury" would be well advised to learn the difference between legem terræ, the people's law and its real Trial by Jury Justice System, and the totalitarian gulag régime's trial-by-judge; for their and others' disparagement of common law Trial by Jury serves the oligarch and advances enslavement of the people.

X. THE DUTY TO PROTECT RIGHTS.

Wendy,
There is no real problem of conscience or "quandary" regarding wherefrom juries derive the right to sit in judgement of those who object to the process. What you call 'Individualism', and privacy, the common good, are protected by the common law and its Trial by Jury: this is the legitimate, civilised response to malignant persons and governments whose acts of malice aforethought, i.e., crimes, impinge upon these very rights of people to lead lives of unmolested tranquillity and in private pursuit of happiness. 

Acquisition of a proper understanding of the common law and its Trial by Jury would reassure that their fears are groundless, any who purport to have concerns about whether the People have a right to judge their equals accused of criminal acts: for it is only through the Trial by Jury that rights are established and protections enforced. The innocent are upheld by their equals in genuine Trial by Jury.

THE DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLE.

The democratic Principle of our traditional Western Constitutions' Trial by Jury is that it is the Will of the People represented by indiscriminately chosen Jurors, not the will of the court or the current transient government, that must determine what laws shall be established, maintained, and how they are enforced. In this way, Trial by Jury is the common law's Mechanism of Authority by which all the rights of all the People are protected, and on which all rights depend. Hence, lawyer Thomas Jefferson's "anchor":

"I consider Trial by Jury as the only anchor yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution."
U.S. President Thomas Jefferson; Author of the Declaration of Independence; co-Founder of the Democratic Party. 
See Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. H.A. Washington, Lippincotts, Philadelphia.

In addition to common criminals' intrusions, governments, through their legislation, are wont to invade upon every aspect of people's lives. In the absence of the protections of Trial by Jury, the state enforces these obnoxious inclinations to tyranny through their willing servants: the prosecutors and judges. Trial by Jury embodies the sole (peaceful) antidote to tyrannical acts of intrusion by government. Your 'radical individualists' would do well to appreciate that without the mechanism of (genuine) Trial by Jury, government decides and denies at whim the people's liberties in a cruel state of society known as despotism...

Moreover, humans possess the inalienable natural right and duty to protect themselves, each other and society from governments' and other persons' acts of injustice. Adults have a moral obligation if randomly selected, to serve on the jury in common law Trial by Jury. When the evidence points to a person's wrongdoing as judged according to common law principles, the moral imperative is on the people to act to redress injustices if possible, and to do justice.   

It is to be expected that outright felons (and such 'radical individualists' ?) as suffer from a sense of guilt, would object to and dwell in fear of the process whereby their failings of character may be exposed and their crimes against others be brought to justice. Nevertheless, it is a fallacy of pretentious individuals, and spurious to pose as a 'problem', to claim to doubt whether the people have the right to perform this duty. In the final analysis, as Jefferson pointed out, rights to liberty and privacy cannot be upheld but by Trial by Jury.

Those who seriously dissent to the people's common law and its execution would themselves have a, or be the, problem. 

Reporters have to produce 'copy' to earn a living, and for them it seems better to say something than nothing. In reality, however, it is a form of extreme treachery to one's fellow citizens to produce flippant writings on the life and death issues of justice which senselessly attack common law Trial by Jury. Journalists, editors and media commentators make criticisms and 'suggestions' which are ill-considered, incorrect, and add momentum to the undermining and progressive destruction of the just Trial by Jury by which alone they and others are protected from injustice and tyranny. If an inexpert editor deems the script to be smart and provocative, he prints it. Unfortunately, few take the trouble to learn the common law relating to Trial by Jury and as a consequence much is published that is damaging miseducation. Wendy, the dismal disinformation in your article exactly fits this latter category.

People must learn what Trial by Jury is, in order to discern that what takes its place in the courtroom today is NOT Trial by Jury at all: it is but a masquerade in which jurors are NOT randomly chosen according to common law rules, but have instead been carefully selected by the judge to do the bidding of the government and produce the verdict desired by the prosecutor and judge. The citizens in the jury box are NOT there to do justice. They are NOT told to judge on the justice of the law and its enforcement according to their consciences; on the contrary, they are ordered NOT to let conscience and opinion of the law intrude on whether the judge's pre-selected partial evidence indicates the law was contravened by the accused. The jurors have NOT decided on the admissibility of the evidence: those facts and evidence which may reveal the law or the act of enforcement to be unjust or invalid or in any way "dispute the legality of the law" are screened out by the judge before trial. Jurors are NOT told to consider whether there was innocence or malice aforethought in the motives and actions of the accused. Frequently, mitigating circumstances are NOT considered by jurors and sentences are NOT set by the jury.

In other words, malpractices by courts (judges) routinely deny and destroy Trial by Jury. Adolph Herben 'criticised' a process which could not honestly be described as anything approaching common law Trial by Jury --- and well you know it, Wendy, for Lysander Spooner, to whom you refer, in Chapter One of his celebrated Essay execrates such injustice which ruins correct due process, giving the following example:

"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 (separate) 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 unfavourably for the purposes of the government were excluded from the panel: "
(Emphasis added.)

" '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 ?' "

Likewise, anyone who knows what common law Trial by Jury is, realises that, following the Chicago Haymarket bombing incident Trial by Jury did not take place. Trial by Jury was replaced by a false 'trial' which exemplifies why the authentic Trial by Jury is indispensable to justice and the protection of the population. 

Judging by his commentary, Herben did not know (or did not want anyone else to know) that the common law Trial by Jury requires the jurors to be randomly selected to reflect all views in society to protect minorities. In the Chicago case a partisan (biased) judge, Joseph E. Gary, conducted the trial, and the jury could NOT have been randomly selected because, by apparently reliable accounts, all the jurors had acknowledged prejudice against the defendants. These jurors were carefully selected for their willingness to deliver the 'guilty' verdict preferred by the judge and prosecutor. This constitutes trial-by-judge; not Trial by Jury.

The procedure was in flagrant breach of the Constitutional Common Law Trial by Jury, which places Herben's unfounded criticisms in the realm of disinformation propaganda.

What the miscarriage of justice in Chicago exemplifies is that if people do not actively support the genuine Constitutional Trial by Jury, it will be subverted by those who serve, not justice, but their own ambitions and self-interest. As a result, the people will suffer at the hand of oligarchs and despots as they do in all times and places where the common law Trial by Jury is not extant to protect them.

The manifest tragedy of the murderous Chicago mistrial (four were unjustifiably hanged) is precisely what the real Trial by Jury is constitutionally emplaced to prevent. Politicians, judges and participating lawyers who breach the common law Trial by Jury Justice System as they routinely do today, deserve the full penal measure of its eventual enforcement. 

TRIAL BY GOVERNMENT 'EXPERTS' ?

When Herben and others declare they prefer 'trial-by-experts' rather than laymen, as, for example, on medical insanity, they make a rash, erroneous assumption.

Certainly, doctors may produce the evidence by which juries can see through a defendant's false claims of insanity and decide the accused's fitness to stand trial as appropriate, or alternatively, perceive psychosis and diminished responsibility; but, rather than following the common law governing random selection of disinterested jurors, and instead choosing them on the basis of their 'technical expertise', has frightful implications...

If Herben would but think through his postulation, or read history, or study Trial by Jury before writing his misbegotten opinions, he would soon realise that he advocates a dangerous concession of power to people whose interests may be served, not by impartiality, truthfulness and justice, but instead by upholding the government's views, prosecutions and laws however despotic and illegal --- for 'experts' would not long remain appointed as such by courts if they did not produce judgements in line with the requirements of the government courts. Indeed, the court might denounce them as 'mentally unfit' and consign them to forced hospitalisation if the 'experts' did not back the official line. 

Whereas, in Trial by Jury, experts for prosecution and defence may present evidence for and against the defendant, and any number of impartial amicus curiæ may be called by the jury to elucidate issues, the bitter human experience shows that taking away the sovereignty of the juror and handing power over to 'experts' and/or government judges, carries with it utmost dangers. It must be remembered that the jury is there for the paramount purpose of seeing that justice is done both to the criminal --- and also to ensure that the innocent are not recipients of injustice from unjustifiable government or private prosecutions.

Jurors' sentences reflect the following facts: wrongful prosecution is compensated; crime is punished and deterred; and real criminals cannot hide their malice aforethought, mens rea, from exposure by the prosecution's examination in front of a jury. 

The jury's decision is therefore one protecting themselves and society at large, and the jurors are there for the one present issue.

By contrast, consider the terrible experiences of intellectual Vladimir Bukovsky who was condemned by government-qualified 'experts' on 'sanity', to fester for years in mental asylums (psikhushkas) and be force-fed hard pharmaceutical psychotropic tranquilliser drugs because of his generous human beliefs in civil liberty, openness (glasnost) and the restructuring of society (perestroika) to recognise people's rights which are suppressed by the statist system. Eventually, Bukovsky was vindicated, but not before the system of 'trial-by-experts' and trial-by-judge did its best to ruin his health, happiness and break his socio-political stance.

Herben's foolish or rabid suggestion of forsaking the random selection of peers (equals; ordinary folk) as one's common law judges, to the whims of career-minded state judges appointing 'experts' to make rulings or binding decisions in any type of case, immediately brings to mind the horrifying experience of many fine Russians who stood up for justice and change in the Soviet Era; of today's persecuted, tortured and murdered peaceful dissidents in China; and of the executed conscientious religious objectors in Afghanistan and Iran, amongst the numerous modern tyrannies which stain our world with innocent people's blood, and proliferate misery, suffering, and enslavement. Justice requires the people of all such countries apply the Common Law Trial by Jury Justice System to try the inhumanity of leaders' and their servitors' Crimes Against Humanity. We in the West are not exempt from this predicament. 

Yet, there is another reason for rejecting 'trial-by-experts'.

THE ORDINARY CITIZEN IS THE EXPERT
ON INJUSTICE AND MALICE AFORETHOUGHT.

Judgements to determine that which is just, as made by randomly chosen, disinterested citizens in the rôle of juror in Trial by Jury, are virtually universally acclaimed to be uniform. That is to say, unanimity is absent only when evidence is insufficient to dispel reasonable doubt. Common law recognises conscience as the faculty enabling all humans to tell right from wrong in respect of humans' behaviour and treatment of others.

Conscience and the universal sense of fairness and natural justice derive from childhood experiences of physical and mental pain and (usually petty) injustices received personally or perceived to have been inflicted on others. Conscience is inherent to sane human adults and is the basis for all justice. Conscience enables people to judge and be judged for the presence of, or innocence from, mens rea (malice aforethought) in their actions. For these reasons, in the enforcement of laws, even the people who consider themselves 'superior experts' must submit to the judgements and rulings on justice made by ordinary citizens in Trial by Jury.
(See Justice William Jones; Jones on Bailments; & Essay EIS#6, THE UNIVERSAL SENSE OF FAIRNESS: "DO-AS-YOU-WOULD-BE-DONE-BY.")
 
Amongst the people there are to be found those who consider themselves superior to most or all others. Some indeed might be considered more beautiful, or especially gifted in particular pursuits, strong and valorous, or endowed with rare mental acuity.
 
Anacharsis was one of those known as the Seven Wise Men of Hellenic Greece. When visiting Athens, he saw Athenian democracy at work and superciliously remarked that it was strange that in Athens wise men spoke and fools decided. Anacharsis was not of the democratic inclination, but rather that of the oligarch statist overlord.

The answer is as follows: the people's common law holds that 'superiority' is always a fallacious 'criterion' and false 'justification' for the enforcement of one person's will on another, because, however 'superior' some people may be, their regard for justice can be perverted by self-interest.

Hence, the universal criterion of justice is that the validity and justice of laws and their enforcement require to be judged not by those who make and enforce the laws, but by those who voluntarily submit to the laws. The attitude of Herben and Anacharsis towards acquired 'expertise' in specific pursuits is irrelevant to the requirements of equal justice whereby Jurors, disinterested ordinary men and women, judge on people's behaviour to ascertain whether it be malicious or innocent.

XI. SOME PRINCIPAL DIFFERENCES.

Consider the situation in the light which reveals some of the principal differences between the two systems: 

With the protections of one's equal fellow citizens in the genuine Trial by Jury, under unjust laws or malfunctioning courts no injustice is ever inflicted on the innocent accused person because of the juror's (even a single juror's) power to annul prosecution. Very rarely, retribution may fail to be visited upon a guilty individual, for example, from the incompetent presentation of the evidence to a case, or from an anomalous intrusive subornment of a juror. The plaintiff would not obtain what was his rightful due in this particular instance. That would be an end to the matter.

In stark contrast, under trial-by-judge (the system of legislative and judicial authority which today prevails over jurors' independence thereby destroying and replacing the Constitutional Common Law Trial by Jury), injustice is perpetrated in every prosecution under an unjust law. On the judgement and under the power of judges, people's property, liberty, or lives can be routinely taken in cruel acts of tyranny. Under the trial-by-judge system, the rights of the whole populace are demolished by the government's laws thus enforced, and a totalitarian tyranny envelops the entire population placing the mass of the people prostrate at the feet of politicians and judges.  

Chief Justice Vaughan's ruling affirms that, if the justice of a law and/or its prosecution is not evident, and a sentence of punishment (being part of the law) cannot be accepted as justifiable and fair by twelve indiscriminately chosen adult citizens, then that 'law' is no law at all: its prosecution requires annulment-by-jury and it must not be enforced. Yet, such justice cannot be delivered by judges whose binding modus operandi forbids them from disputing the justice and legality of law.

Once a law has been passed and interpreted for enforcement by the courts, the judge in the system of trial-by-judge (or tribunal of judges, or appeals' courts), is neither permitted to dispute the legality of the law nor produce a verdict according to conscientious judgement on whether the law or its enforcement is just, even when its enforcement is a manifest act of extreme injustice. Whenever a law is passed (for whatever reason) which inflicts injustice, trial-by-judge becomes an instrument of government oppression. Trial-by-judge is the despot's weapon.

If retribution might sometimes (but very rarely) want of being done in the Trial by Jury Justice System, Chief Justice Vaughan's ruling recognises the phenomenon long understood and upheld by civilised mankind, that the consciences of a common law jury of twelve form a safer, purer tribunal than those of specially appointed individuals holding permanent offices lucratively remunerated and bound to enforce the government's legislation. 

NOWADAYS...

Nowadays, Trial by Jury is precluded by judges' illegal intervention to forbid jurors from judging on equity issues, on the justice of the law and its enforcement. The courts' current unlawful modus operandi is to facilitate the tyranny manifest in the judiciary's antidemocratic enforcement of inequitable and venal statutes and regulations, which otherwise citizen-jurors in the authentic Trial by Jury would emphatically annul en masse.

The motive behind, and explanation for, judges' boundless treachery are the same today as they have always been, and they confirm that the indispensability of Trial by Jury is eternal: the judiciary is responsible, not to the People, but to the government; judges are dependent for careers, salaries and by impeachment, on the legislature: to remain judges, they must reliably enforce unjust legislation.

To allow these compromised humans to dictate the law, utterly surrenders all the liberties, rights, property and money of the People, to the arbitrary will of apostate politicians. Any person who would propose or support such a system of enslavement and subjection of the people, suffers from lack of education and knowledge of human behaviour and political history, or from acute antidemocratic mens rea (criminal intent).

The desertion of and infractions by modern judiciaries of universal natural law, common law, morality, impartiality, justice and the strictures of the U.S. Constitution and the U.K. Great Charter Constitution, are epitomised, and the injustice of today's "justice system" is demonstrated, by judges' prevaricative misstatement of law (which they are all too fond of reciting) that "congress/ parliament makes law, and judges enforce it." Au contraire...

... A just system is the only one that is legal: trial-by-the-government-judge has always been unacceptable to people of probity. Viz. The 1972 ruling of the U.S. District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals:

"The jury has an unreviewable and irreversible power to acquit in disregard of the instruction on the law given by the trial judge. The pages of history shine upon instances of the jury's exercise of its prerogative to disregard instructions of the judge."

Compounding their violation of common law and suffocation of Justice, nowadays, arrant 'judges' do not even permit defence lawyers to tell juries that it is a definitive and integral part of the Juror's function to judge the justice of law enforcement. Thus is Trial by Jury by judges dismembered.

The modern judges judicably corrupt themselves beyond the pale, abetting and participating in ferocious tyranny with their perverted and inequitable misconstruing and enforcing of inequitable, money-motivated, criminogenic (crime-engendering) legislation.

Byington's and Herben's objections were actually to a government-fabricated system of injustice which disguised itself under the appearance and name, but was nothing like real Trial by Jury. What they observed was the despots' familiar travesty which breaches the common law governing Trial by Jury and which takes place everywhere today, is implanted by governments, controlled by judges, and is actually the inherently illegal trial-by-judge thinly veiled.

XII. Universal Adoption of the Common Law Trial by Jury Justice System
Brings Fraternity, Universal Liberty, Equal Justice and Relative Peace on Earth.
Wendy,
While a knob of chalk and a chunk of cheese might look the same, the similarities are superficial; the disparities extreme. One will nourish and sustain you; the other in small doses will lay you low and a larger exposure will cause acute symptoms. So too, the outward appearance of Trial by Jury may bear some likeness to trial-by-judge, but society and the people at large prosper and benefit from the Constitutional Trial by Jury; whereas, trial-by-judge is a contrivance of Crime Against Humanity adopted for promoting the rulers' interests.

In your writings, the criticisms which are levelled at 'trial by Jury' are misguided, for they apply not to the authentic Trial by Jury but instead to trial-by-judge which replaces Trial by Jury whenever the people's servility and complacency permit it to do so. The writings are shallow too, in that they do not show the grave failings and great injustices inflicted by systems such as trial-by-judge and trial-by-experts, judicial or other 'arbitration', with which those failing 'critics' would replace the Trial by Jury. The writings are damaging, not constructive, offering no good advice whilst they are also misleading.

If there be any positive feature which can be retrieved from the writings which you have promulgated on this subject it must repose in the fact that you provide an opportunity for others to refute them as incorrect and misconstrued; and use them to demonstrate the ways in which Trial by Jury comprises the only justice system worthy of any society which aspires to civilised standards.

We hope you will come to a realisation of the indispensability of Trial by Jury to the well-being of all people, yourself notwithstanding, and write texts anew extolling its virtues. To this end, consider again the wisdom of Winston Churchill:

"We must never cease to proclaim in fearless tones the great principles of freedom and the rights of man which are the joint inheritance of the English-speaking world and which through Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, the Habeas Corpus, Trial by Jury, and the English common law, find their most famous expression in the American Declaration of Independence."
Sir Winston Churchill. To Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri, 1946.

Yours sincerely,
Kenn d'Oudney.

Much is excluded in the interests of brevity but further explicative information on the subjects raised in this OPEN LETTER can be perused on the webpages of the DEMOCRACY DEFINED CAMPAIGN PHILOSOPHY.

"Better never to vote at all than vote for a person who does not make EQUAL JUSTICE the prime aim of government by RESTORATION and UNIVERSAL ADOPTION of Constitutional Common Law Trial by Jury."
~

Kenn d'Oudney is author of books and essays including the following:
TRIAL BY JURY: ITS HISTORY, TRUE PURPOSE AND MODERN RELEVANCE ISBN 9781902848723, with endorsements and edited section authored by U.S. lawyer Lysander Spooner;
http://www.democracydefined.org/2trialbyjury.htm 

SRC Publishing Ltd., London, world distribution by LULU of North Carolina.

THE CONSTITUTION TREATISE: Why the d'Estaing ('European') Constitution-Treaty Is the Antithesis of Democracy ISBN 9781902848747, see website for endorsements by U.S. & U.K. cognoscenti;
http://www.democracydefined.org/5constitution.htm 

SRC Publishing Ltd., London.

THE REPORT, CANNABIS: THE FACTS, HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE LAW 9781902848204, co-authored by Joanna d'Oudney; Foreword by a Nobel laureate former Official Adviser to the U.S. government; endorsed by a Professor of Physiology Fellow of the Royal Society, academics, doctors (of a variety of disciplines) and judges (U.S. & U.K.); 260 large-size pages;
http://www.democracydefined.org/1report.htm
THE REPORT collates the medico-scientific Findings of Fact of the empirical clinical studies into non-toxic, non-addictive natural herb cannabis (differentiated from laboratory toxic product THC). The official investigations exonerate cannabis from all allegations of 'harm' and 'impairment' (including tests on simulated driving); and exempt cannabis from all legislative criteria of control ('prohibition'). Efficacious in over 100 medical conditions (viz. Official Pharmacopoeias) with potential to replace numerous lucrative, but ineffective debilitating addictive toxic pharmaceuticals, rendering significant financial government-corporate revenue and profit motive (trillions) behind prohibition. THE REPORT also contains the unprecedented Cannabis Biomass Energy Equation (CBEE) which further exposes massive ulterior motive behind prohibition. The CBEE proves the clean-combusting cannabis-product CH3OH is the cheap non-polluting renewable world replacement for fossils and uranium.
Six Parts (chapters) include expert documentary, legal, academic, scientific, medical, economic, social, criminological, philosophical evidence, and that which is based on grounds of equity, vindicating all cultivation, trade, possession and use and which exposes perjury and venality in prohibition legislation. Part Seven, entitled RESTORATION: JUSTICE AND THE CONSTITUTION, exposes corruption, ineptitude and injustice in the justice process; and examines Law: natural law, supreme legem terræ Constitutional common law, treaties, statutes; quotes presidents, judges, lawyers and chief justices.
"To cause crime to occur is to be accountable for the crime, morally and legally. To consent to any measure is to share responsibility for its results." See Part Six of THE REPORT, PROHIBITION: THE PROGENITOR OF CRIME. Legalised, cannabis grows anywhere: the benign herb's foliage and flowers come free or at an insignificant price, but yielding no revenues to government and no profits to corporations. However, prohibition creates the Black Market: the Economic Effects of Prohibition (scarcity + enforcement, etc.) augment "street" value by 3000% plus, making all Black Market associated crime inevitable. The political commodities' prohibition, i.e., War on Drugs, engenders (causes) not less than 75 - 80 percent of all crimes (official statistics) throughout the West. 
"You have done a splendid job of producing a comprehensive summary of the evidence documenting that the prohibition of the production, sale and use of cannabis is utterly unjustified and produces many harmful effects. Any impartial person reading your REPORT will almost certainly end up favouring the re-legalisation of cannabis."
NOBEL LAUREATE PROFESSOR MILTON FRIEDMAN, former Economics' Adviser to U.S. government; Author, video and TV series writer and presenter; Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace; Professor Emeritus, University of Chicago.
"You represent a worthy part of the fight in many countries for the logical and beneficial use of cannabis. I thank you for that."
PROFESSOR PATRICK D. WALL, Author; Professor of Physiology, UMDS St. Thomas's (Teaching) Hospital, London; Fellow of the Royal Society; DM, FRCP.
SRC Publishing Ltd., London, world distribution by LULU of North Carolina.

GLOBAL WARMING OR NOT -- THE CBEE SOLUTION: CHEAP, NON-POLLUTING, RENEWABLE, TOTAL WORLD REPLACEMENT FOR FOSSILS AND URANIUM ISBN 9781902848068,
endorsed by Economics' Nobel Prize Winner Professor Milton Friedman, former official Adviser to the U.S. government; and the official Adviser to U.K. government on Environment; and academics and doctors of a variety of disciplines;
doubt the sincerity or knowledge of any who speak or write about the environment and fuel-energy without their giving exposition to the demonstrated facts of The CBEE Formulation;
http://www.democracydefined.org/3globalwarming.htm
SRC Publishing Ltd., London.

MAGNA CARTA, THE GREAT CHARTER CONSTITUTION; freely downloadable information about the true pan-European and pan-Occidental Constitution;
http://www.democracydefined.org/democracydefinedmaterial.htm

WE THE PEOPLE AND THE MATTER OF WORDS; freely downloadable, indispensable information for the creation and sustainment of legitimate government and society;
http://www.democracydefined.org/democracydefinedmaterial.htm

DEMOCRACY DEFINED: ON THE ETYMOLOGY, HISTORY AND SIGNIFICATION OF THE WORD DEMOCRACY; the Sciences of Etymology, Semantics, Semasiology, and Philology determine whether your country is a definitive democracy or your government is a despotism;
http://www.democracydefined.org/democracydefinedcampaign.htm#democracy

9-11 TRUTH LINKS COMPENDIUM; exposition with select video analysis & lectures; contributions by professors, architects, scientists, Federal Aviation Authority experts, former CIA, FBI, military and government officals; freely download this Compendium which serves as an introduction to the subject, and as a source of additional references for those already familiar with the 9/11 Truth Movement;
http://www.democracydefined.org/democracydefinedmaterial.htm

THE VALUE OR OTHERWISE OF LAW DICTIONARIES; part of the contents of a forthcoming book to be published by SRC Publishing. It is nevertheless, for the time being anyway, downloadable for free;
http://www.democracydefined.org/democracydefinedmaterial.htm 

ON REFERENDA AND MAJORITY RULE; part of the contents of a forthcoming book downloadable for free;
http://www.democracydefined.org/democracydefinedmaterial.htm 

RADIOACTIVITY FROM CROPS FED WITH PHOSPHATE 'FERTILISER' IS THE PRINCIPAL CAUSE OF CANCER; some Findings of Fact downloadable for free, extracted from THE REPORT ISBN 9781902848204 (referred to above);

http://www.democracydefined.org/democracydefinedmaterial.htm 

THE BURIED PRIMORDIAL ATMOSPHERE; empirical facts demonstrated and atmospheric carbon dioxide infra-red science explained; why and how the global warming 'sceptics' are deceiving the public; their motive and discrepancies revealed; on the governmental financial subterfuge of carbon and eco 'taxes'; and how the proven CBEE Formulation makes available the pollution-free, renewable, cheap replacement for fossils and uranium, as endorsed by Economics' Nobel laureate, U.K. government Adviser on Environment, technical & environment experts, and academics;
http://www.democracydefined.org/3globalwarming.htm

CHIEF JUSTICE VAUGHAN'S RULING; on perhaps the most famous trial in history; Juror's Rights and Duty and the Old Bailey Commemorative Plaque;
http://www.democracydefined.org/democracydefinedcampaign2.htm#intervention

WHY THE LEGAL PROFESSION CANNOT DEFEND YOU; consider some of the breaches of common law and Constitution to which modern government resorts in order to enforce its inequitable and money-motivated statutes;
http://www.democracydefined.org/democracydefinedcampaign4.htm#lawyers

Further reading on the website:
http://www.democracydefined.org/
The Home Page of The not-for-profit Educational Campaign for RESTORATION and
UNIVERSAL ADOPTION of CONSTITUTIONAL COMMON LAW TRIAL BY JURY. 
The Democracy Defined Campaign Philosophy is endorsed by academics, attorneys,
doctors (of jurisprudence, medicine, homeopathy, philosophy, etc.) and judges ( U.S . & U.K.). 
Join the Campaign ! Download and distribute free posters and educational pamphlets. Membership gratis.
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