From: drg@bubba.ma30.bull.com (Daniel R Guilderson)
Subject: Judging the law as well as the facts (was Re: Bearing arms: ...)
Organization: Bull World Wide Information Systems, Billerica MA USA
Date: 28 Aug 92 11:45:25
	<1992Aug27.200220.26297@mips2.ma30.bull.com>

In article <1992Aug27.200220.26297@mips2.ma30.bull.com> mgelman@cyclades.ma30.bull.com (Michael A. Gelman) writes:

   It is my understanding (although I haven't checked) that this
   statement about juries is incorrect.  A jury is only involved at the
   "trial of the facts."

I don't have much time to relate my personal opinion on this but here
are some relevant quotes:

    	    	    =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

"It would be an absurdity for jurors to be required to accept the
judge's view of the law, against their own opinion, judgement, and
conscience."

    --- John Adams.

    	    	    =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

"It is not only [the juror's] 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."

    --- John Adams, 1771.

    	    	    =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

"The jury has the right to determine both the law and the facts."

    --- Samuel Chase, Supreme Court Justice and signer of the
    	Declaration of Independence, 1804.

    	    	    =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

"The jury has a right to judge both the law as well as the fact in
controversy."

    --- John Jay, first Chief Justice, US Supreme Court, in
    	Georgia v. Brailsford, 1794:4.

    	    	    =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

"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."

    --- Theophilus Parsons, a leading supporter of the US Constitution
    	in the convention of 1788 by which Massachusetts ratified
    	(History of the Constitution, p 267)

    	    	    =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

"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 ... and the
courts must abide by that decision."

    --- US v Moylan, 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, 1969,
    	417 F.2d at 1006.

    	    	    =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=


   The 200 years of courts working on the constitution
   have altered the interpretation of "infringment."

I wouldn't be so sure.  The First Amendment was originally meant to
protect "political" speech.  Rather than limiting the extent of the
First Amendment, time has widened it.  To this day, political-speech
freedom is an absolute right that can not be infringed.

   And it *is* the responsibilty of the police to protect citzens.  

I don't have the source handy at the moment but there was a Supreme
Court ruling which basically said that the police are not responsible
for protecting citizens.  i.e.  if a woman calls up the police dept.
and tells them that a man has threatened to rape her at some
unspecified date in the future, the police are not bound by law to
provide surveillance for her.  I don't remember all the specifics but
the general idea is that if the police happen to be there for you when
you need them, great, but don't expect them to come through every
time.  That means that most if not all of the responsibility for your
own self-protection lays on you.