The American Spectator

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(Page 7 of 21)

Hard Case : /p> p>Regarding the sad affair of Mr. Richard Paey, a href= "http://etext.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/jeff1520.htm" target="BLANK"> br> a few words /a> from Mr. Jefferson, Thomas that is, should suffice as an answer to Paey's plight and that of others trapped in similar circumstances: /p> blockquote> Jury Nullification br> "It is left... to the juries, if they think the permanent judges are under any bias whatever in any cause, to take on themselves to judge the law as well as the fact. They never exercise this power but when they suspect partiality in the judges; and by the exercise of this power they have been the firmest bulwarks of English liberty." --Thomas Jefferson to Abbe Arnoux, 1789. ME 7:423, Papers 15:283

"If the question before [the magistrates] be a question of law only, they decide on it themselves: but if it be of fact, or of fact and law combined, it must be referred to a jury. In the latter case of a combination of law and fact, it is usual for the jurors to decide the fact and to refer the law arising on it to the decision of the judges. But this division of the subject lies with their discretion only. And if the question relate to any point of public liberty, or if it be one of those in which the judges may be suspected of bias, the jury undertake to decide both law and fact. If they be mistaken, a decision against right which is casual only is less dangerous to the state and less afflicting to the loser than one which makes part of a regular and uniform system." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia Q.XIV, 1782. ME 2:179

"The juries [are] our judges of all fact, and of law when they choose it." --Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval, 1816. ME 15:35

/blockquote> p>Until Americans have the courage to defy their government and its draconian drug laws, we shall not be free of such perfidious nonsense.

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