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                  FIJA'S SELECTED QUOTES



     John  Adams,  who became the second U.S.  President,in  1771
said  of the juror:  "it is not only his right, but his duty  ...
to  find  the verdict according to his  own  best  understanding,
judgment,  and  conscience, though in direct  opposition  to  the
direction  of the  court."  Quoted  in  Yale   Law   Journal,74
(1964):173.



     Alexander Hamilton (1804): Jurors should acquit even against
the  judge's instruction "... if exercising their  judgment  with
discretion  and  honesty they have a clear  conviction  that  the
charge of the court is wrong."  Quoted in Joseph Sax, Yale Review
57 (June 1968): 481-494.



   John  Jay,  first  Chief Justice,  U.S.  Supreme  Court,  in
Georgia  v. Brailsford, 1794:4., said: "The jury has a  right  to
judge both the law as well as the fact in controversy."



     Samuel  Chase,  Supreme  Court Justice  and  signer  of  the
Declaration  of Independence, 1804:  "The jury has the  right  to
determine both the law and the facts."



     Thomas  Jefferson,  in a letter to Thomas Paine,  1789:   "I
consider  trial by jury as the only anchor ever yet  imagined  by
man,  by which a government can be held to the principles of  its
constitution."



     Theophilus Parsons,"a leading supporter of the  Constitution
of  the  United  States  in  the  convention  of  1788  by  which
Massachusetts  ratified the Constitution, appointed by  President
Adams  in  1801  Attorney  General  of  the  United  States,  but
declining   that   office,   and  becoming   Chief   Justice   of
Massachusetts in 1806," said:

     "  The people themselves have it in their power  effectually
to resist usurpation, without being driven to an appeal to  arms.
An  act of usurpation is not obligatory; it is not law;  and  any
man may be justified in his resistance.  Let him be considered as
a  criminal  by  the  general government,  yet  only  his  fellow
citizens  can  convict  him;  they are  his  jury,  and  if  they
pronounce  him innocent, not all the powers of Congress can  hurt
him;  and  innocent  they certainly will pronounce  him,  if  the
supposed  law he resisted was an act of usurpation."  2  Elliot's
Debates,  94;  2  Bancroft's History of  the  Constitution,  267.
Quoted  in  Sparf  and  Hansen  v.  U.S.,  156  U.S.  51  (1895),
Dissenting Opinion,: Gray, Shiras, JJ.,144.



     "If  a juror accepts as the law that which the judge  states
then  that juror has accepted the exercise of absolute  authority
of  a government employee and has surrendered a power  and  right
that  once  was the citizen's safeguard of liberty,  --  For  the
saddest  epitaph  which  can be carved in memory  of  a  vanished
liberty  is  that it was lost because its  possessors  failed  to
stretch forth a saving hand while yet there was time." 2 Elliot's
Debates, 94, Bancroft, History of the Constitution, 267, 1788.



     "...Unless  the jury can exercise its  community  conscience
role, our judicial system will have become so inflexible that the
effect  may well be a progressive radicalization of protest  into
channels  that will threaten the very continuance of  the  system
itself.   To  put it another way the jury is...the  safety  valve
that  must  exist if this society is to be  able  to  accommodate
itself  it  its  own  internal stresses  and  strains...  if  the
community  is  to  sit in the jury box, its  decision  cannot  be
legally limited to a conscience-less application of fact to law."
William  Kunstler,  quoted  in Franklin M.  Nugent,  Jury  Power:
Secret  Weapon  Against Bad Law, revised from  Youth  Connection,
1988.



     "Every  jury  in  the  land is  tampered  with  and  falsely
instructed by the judge when it is told it must take (or  accept)
as  the law that which has been given to them, or that they  must
bring  in  a certain verdict, or that they can  decide  only  the
facts of the case."  Lord Denman, C.J. O'Connel v. R. (1884).



     "For  more  than  six hundred years--that  is,  since  Magna
Carta, in 1215, there has been no clearer principle of English or
American constitutional law, than that, in criminal cases, it  is
not  only  the  right and duty of juries to judge  what  are  the
facts,  what  is the law, and what was the moral  intent  of  the
accused;  but that it is also their right, and their primary  and
paramount  duty, to judge of the justice of the law, and to  hold
all  laws  invalid,  that  are,  in  their  opinion,  unjust   or
oppressive, and all persons guiltless in violating, or  resisting
the execution of, such laws."  Lysander Spooner, An Essay on  the
Trial by Jury, 1852, p.11.



     "In  the trial of all criminal cases, the Jury shall be  the
Judges of Law, as well as of fact, except that the Court may pass
upon  the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain  a  conviction."
Article XV, section 5 of the Constitution of Maryland.



     "Because of this constitutional mandate, this instruction is
given to criminal jurors in Maryland:

    'Members  of the Jury, this is a criminal case and under  the
Constitution and the laws of the State of Maryland in a  criminal
case  the jury are the judges of the law as well as of the  facts
in the case.  So that whatever I tell you about the law while  it
is  intended to be helpful to you in reaching a just  and  proper
verdict in the case, it is not binding upon you as members of the
jury and you may accept or reject it.  And you may apply the  law
as  you apprehend it to be in the case. '"     Alan Scheflin  and
Jon Van Dyke, Jury Nullification: The Contours of a  Controversy,
Law and Contemporary Problems, 43, 83. (1980)



    "If  the  jury  feels the law is  unjust,  we  recognize  the
undisputed  power of the jury to acquit, even if its  verdict  is
contrary  to  the law as given by a 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, 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, 1969, 417 F.2d at
1006.



     The  jury has an "unreviewable and irreversible power...  to
acquit  in disregard of the instructions on the law given by  the
trial judge..."  "The pages of history shine on instances of  the
jury's   exercise of its prerogative to disregard  uncontradicted
evidence and instructions of the judge," specifically citing  the
Zenger case and the refusal of jurors to convict defendants under
the  fugitive slave law.U.S. v. Dougherty, D.C. Circuit Court  of
Appeals,  1972,  473 F.2d at 1130 and  1132.  (Nevertheless,  the
majority  opinion  held that jurors need not be  told  this.  The
dissenting judge, Chief Judge Bazelon, thought that they ought to
be so told.)



     "The  arguments for opposing the  nullification  instruction
are,  in  our  view, deficient because they  fail  to  weigh  the
political advantages gained by not lying to the jury." ...  "What
impact  will this deception have on jurors who felt coerced  into
their  verdict by the judge's instructions and who  learn,  after
trail,   that  they  could  have  voted  their  consciences   and
acquitted? Such a juror is less apt to respect the legal system."
Alan Scheflin and Jon Van Dyke, "Jury Nullification: the Contours
of  a Controversy," Law and Contemporary Problems, 43,  No.4,105-
106.



     "In a representative government ... there is no absurdity or
contradiction, nor any arraying of the people against themselves,
in  requiring that the statutes or enactments of  the  government
shall pass the ordeal of any number of separate tribunals, before
it  shall be determined that they are to have the force of  laws.
Our  American constitutions have provided five of these  separate
tribunals, to wit, representatives, senate, executive, ...  jury,
and judges; and have made it necessary that each enactment  shall
pass  the  ordeal  of all these separate  tribunals,  before  its
authority  can  be  established by the punishment  of  those  who
choose to transgress it... there is no more absurdity in giving a
jury a  veto upon the laws than there is in giving a veto to each
of  these  other tribunals." Lysander Spooner,  An Essay  on  the
Trial by Jury, 1852.



     "In all criminal cases whatesoever, the jury shall have  the
right to determine the law and the facts."  Article 1, section 19
of the Indiana Constitution.  Upheld, Holliday v. State 257  N.E.
579 (1970).



     "It  is  useful to distinguish between the jury's  right  to
decide questions of law and its power to do so.  The jury's power
to decide the law in returning a general verdict is indisputable.
The debate of the nineteenth century revolved around the question
of  whether  the  jury  had a legal and  moral  right  to  decide
questions  of law."  Note (anon.), The Changing Role of the  Jury
in the Nineteenth Century,  Yale Law Journal, 74,170 (1964).



     "Underlying the conception of the jury as a bulwark  against
the unjust use of governmental power were the distrust of  'legal
experts'  and a faith in the ability of the common people.   Upon
this  faith  rested the prevailing political  philosophy  of  the
constitution-framing   era:  that  popular  control   over,   and
participation  in,  government should be  maximized.   Thus  John
Adams stated that 'the common people...should have as complete  a
control, as decisive a negative, in every judgment of a court  of
judicature'  as  they  have, through the  legislature,  in  other
decisions  of government." Note (anon.) The Changing Role of  the
Jury in the Nineteenth Century, Yale Law Journal, 74, 172,(1964).



     "Since  natural  law  was thought to be  accessible  to  the
ordinary  man,  the  theory invited each  juror  to  inquire  for
himself  whether  a  particular rule of law  was  consonant  with
principles of higher law.  This view is reflected in John  Adams'
statement  that  it  would be an 'absurdity'  for  jurors  to  be
required  to accept the judge's view of the law,  'against  their
own  opinion,  judgment,  and  conscience.'"   Note  (anon.)  The
Changing  Role  of the Jury in the Nineteenth Century,  Yale  Law
Journal, 74, 172, (1964).



     "...[T]he  right of the jury to decide questions of law  was
widely  recognized in the colonies.  In 1771, John  Adams  stated
unequivocally that a juror should ignore a judge's instruction on
the law if it violates fundamental principles:

     'It  is  not only...[the juror's] right, but  his  duty,  in
that  case,  to  find  the verdict  according  to  his  own  best
understanding,   judgment,  and  conscience,  though   in   direct
opposition to the direction of the court.'

     There  is  much evidence of the general acceptance  of  this
principle  in the period immediately after the  Constitution  was
adopted."   Note  (anon.), The Changing Role of the Jury  in  the
Nineteenth Century, Yale Law Journal, 74, 173 (1964).



     "During the first third of the nineteenth century,...judges

frequently  charged  juries that they were the judges of  law  as
well as the fact and were not bound by the judge's  instructions.
A  charge that the jury had the right to consider the law  had  a
corollary at the level of trial procedure: counsel had the  right
to  argue  the law--its interpretation and its  validity--to  the
jury."   Note  (anon.),  The Changing Role of  the  Jury  in  the
Nineteenth Century,

Yale Law Journal,74, 174,(1964).



     Alexander Hamilton, acting as defense counsel in a seditious
libel  case,  said: "That in criminal  cases,  nevertheless,  the
court  are the constitutional advisors of the jury in  matter  of
law;  who  may compromise their conscience by lightly  or  rashly
disregarding  that  advice, but may still more  compromise  their
consciences  by following it, if exercising their judgments  with
discretion  and  honesty they have a clear  conviction  that  the
charge  of the court is wrong." 7 Hamilton's Works,  (ed.  1886),
336-373.



     New  York  Supreme  Court Justice  Kent  (1803):  "The  true
criterion  of  a  legal  power  is  its  capacity  to  produce  a
definitive effect, liable neither to censure nor review.  And the
verdict  of not guilty in a criminal case, is, in every  respect,
absolutely final.  The jury are not liable to punishment, nor the
verdict  to  control.  No attaint lies, nor can a  new  trial  be
awarded.   The  exercise  of  this power in  the  jury  has  been
sanctioned,  and upheld in constant activity, from  the  earliest
ages." 3 Johns Cas. 366-368. Quoted in Sparf and Hansen v.  U.S.,
156 U.S.51,148-149. (1894) (Gray, Shiras, JJ, dissenting).



     "Within  six years after the Constitution  was  established,
the  right of the jury, upon the general issue, to determine  the
law  as well as the fact in controversy, was  unhesitatingly  and
unqualifiedly  affirmed by this court, in the first of  the  very
few  trials  by  jury ever had at its  bar,  under  the  original
jurisdiction conferred upon it by the Constitution."...

     "The  report  shows that, in a case in which  there  was  no
controversy about the facts, the court, while stating to the jury
its  unanimous  opinion upon the law of the case,  and  reminding
them  of 'the good old rule, that on questions of fact it is  the
province  of the jury, on questions of law it is the province  of
the  court to decide,' expressly informed them that 'by the  same
law,   which   recognizes   this   reasonable   distribution   of
jurisdiction',  the jury 'have nevertheless a right to take  upon
themselves to judge of both, and to determine the law as well  as
the  fact  in controversy.'" Supreme Court, Sparf and  Hansen  v.
U.S.,  156 U.S. 51, 154-155.(1894), From the dissent by Gray  and
Shiras.





    "It  is  universally conceded that a  verdict  of  acquittal,
although  rendered  against  the instructions of  the  judge,  is
final,  and cannot be set aside; and consequently that  the  jury
have the legal power to decide for themselves the law involved in
the general issue of guilty or not guilty."  From the dissent  by
Gray  and  Shiras, Supreme Court, Sparf and Hansen v.  U.S.,  156
U.S. 51, 172 (1894).



     " ... it is a matter of common observation, that judges  and
lawyers,  even the most upright, able and learned, are  sometimes
too much influenced by technical rules; and that those judges who
are  ... occupied in the administration of criminal  justice  are
apt,  not only to grow severe in their sentences, but  to  decide
quesions of law too unfavorably to the accused.

     "The  jury having the undoubted and uncontrollable power  to
determine for themselves the law as well as the fact by a general
verdict  of  acquittal, a denial by the court of their  right  to
exercise  this  power will be apt to excite in them a  spirit  of
jealosy and contradiction... ."

     "... But a person accused of crime has a twofold protection,
in  the court and the jury, against being  unlawfully  convicted.
If the evidence appears to the court to be insufficient in law to
warrant  a conviction, the court may direct an acquittal....  But
the court can never order the jury to convict; for no one can  be
found guilty, but by the judgment of his peers." From the dissent
by Gray and Shiras, Supreme Court, Sparf and Hansen v. U.S.,  156
U.S. 51, 174 (1894).



     "But,  as  the  experience of history shows,  it  cannot  be
assumed  that judges will always be just and impartial, and  free
from the inclination, to which even the most upright and  learned
magistrates  have  been known to yield--from the  most  patriotic
motives, and with the most honest intent to promote symmetry  and
accuracy  in  the law--of amplifying their own  juristiction  and
powers  at the expense of those entrusted by the Constitution  to
other  bodies.   And  there is surely no  reason  why  the  chief
security  of  the  liberty of the citizen, the  judgment  of  his
peers,  should  be  held  less sacred in a  republic  than  in  a
monarchy."  From the dissent by Gray and Shiras,  Supreme  Court,
Sparf and Hansen v. U.S., 156 U.S. 51, 176 (1894).



     "The  jury has the power to bring a verdict in the teeth  of
both  the  law and facts." Oliver Wendell  Holmes,  U.S.  Supreme
Court Justice, Horning v. District of Columbia, 138 (1920).



     "If  juries were restricted to finding facts, cases with  no
disputed  factual  issues would be withheld from the  jury.   But
such cases are presented to the jury.  By its general verdict  of
innocence,  the jury may free a person without its verdict  being
subject  to  challenge.  The judge cannot ask jurors  to  explain
their  verdict,  nor  may the judge punish  the  jurors  for  it.
Although  judges  now generally tell jurors they  must  obey  the
judge's instructions on the law, the jurors may not be  compelled
to  do  so.   If the jury convicts,  however,  the  defendant  is
entitled  to  a broad range of procedural protections  to  ensure
that the jury was fair and honest.

     "When  a  jury  acquits a defendant even though  he  or  she
clearly  appears to be guilty, the acquittal conveys  significant
information  about community attitudes and provides  a  guideline
for  future  prosecutorial discretion in the enforcement  of  the
laws.  Because  of the high acquittal rate in  prohibition  cases
during  the 1920s and early 1930s, prohibition laws could not  be
enforced.   The repeal of these laws is traceable to the  refusal
of  juries  to convict those accused of alcohol traffic."    Alan
Scheflin and Jon Van Dyke, Jury Nullification: The Contours of  a
Controversy, Law and Contemporary Problems, 43, No.4, 71.(1980).



     "Jury  acquittals in the colonial, abolitionist,  and  post-
bellum  eras of the United States helped advance  insurgent  aims
and hamper government efforts at social control.  Widespread jury
acquittals  or hung juries during the Vietnam War might have  had
the same effect.  But the refusal of judges in trials of  anitwar
protesters  to inform juries of their power to disregard the  law
helped ensure convictions, which in turn frustrated antiwar goals
and  protected  the government from the many  repercussions  that
acquittals or hung juries would have brought." Steven E.  Barkan,
Jury  Nullification  in Political Trials,  Social  Problems,  31,
No.1,38, October, 1983.



     "...The institution of trial by jury--especially in criminal
cases--has  its hold upon public favor chiefly for  two  reasons.
The  individual  can forfeit his liberty--to say nothing  of  his
life--only at the hands of those who, unlike any official, are in
no  wise accountable, directly or indirectly, for what  they  do,
and  who at once separate and melt anonymously in  the  community
from  which  they  came.  Moreover, since if  they  acquit  their
verdict  is  final, no one is likely to suffer of  whose  conduct
they do not morally disapprove; and this introduces a slack  into
the  enforcement  of law, tempering its rigor by  the  mollifying
influence  of current ethical conventions.  A trial by any  jury,
...preserves  both  these fundamental elements and a trial  by  a
judge  preserves  neither...." Judge Learned Hand,  U.S.  ex  rel
McCann v. Adams, 126 F.2d 774, 775-76 (2nd Circuit, 1942).



     "It's  easy for the public to ignore an unjust law,  if  the
law  operates  behind closed doors and out of  sight.   But  when
jurors have to use a law to send a man to prison, they are forced
to think long and hard about the justice of the law. And when the
public   reads   newspaper  accounts  of  criminal   trials   and
convictions, they too may think about whether the convictions are
just.   As  a result, jurors and spectators alike  may  bring  to
public  debate more informed interest in improving  the  criminal
law.  Any law which makes many people uncomfortable is likely  to
attract the attention of the legislature.  The laws on  narcotics
and abortion come to mind--and there must be others.  The  public
adversary trial thus provides an important mechanism for  keeping
the substantive criminal law in tune with contemporary  community
values."  D.C.  Circuit Court Judge  D. Bazelon,  "The  Adversary
Process--Who  Needs  It? 12th Annual James Madison  Lecture,  New
York  University  School of Law (April, 1971), reprinted  in  117
Cong. Rec. 5852, 5855 (daily ed. April 29, 1971).