Trial By Jury Quotes

There was not a member of the Constitutional Convention who had the least objection to what is contended for by the advocates for a Bill of Rights and trial by jury. ~ George Washington

The trial by jury is a trial by 'the country,' in contradistinction to a trial by the government. The jurors are drawn by lot from the mass of the people, for the very purpose of having all classes of minds and feelings, that prevail among the people at large, represented in the jury. ~ Lysander Spooner

The corporations don't like open courts of law, trials by jury. They want to privatize by pushing people into compulsory arbitration where they win most of the time and the whole process is pretty secret. ~ Ralph Nader

The humorist who invented trial by jury played a colossal practical joke upon the world, but since we have the system we ought to try and respect it. A thing which is not thoroughly easy to do, when we reflect that by command of the law a criminal juror must be an intellectual vacuum, attached to a melting heart and perfectly macaronian bowels of compassion. ~ Mark Twain

The wisdom of our ages and the blood of our heroes has been devoted to the attainment of trial by jury. It should be the creed of our political faith. ~ Thomas Jefferson

Loyalty is that for the lack of which your gang will shoot you without benefit of trial by jury. ~ Robert Frost

In suits at common law, trial by jury in civil cases is as essential to secure the liberty of the people as any one of the pre-existent rights of nature. ~ James Madison

2. We must never cease to proclaim in fearless tones the great principles of freedom and the rights of man 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. ~ Winston S. Churchill

Trial by jury is a wise distribution of power which exceeds all other modes of trial. ~ Edward Coke

Three features mark the Anglo-American system as different from all others. One is the extent to which our law is formed in litigation. Another feature is the way we conduct these cases: we pit antagonists against each other, to cast up from their struggles the material of decisions. A third- and largest in the public consciousness- is the trial by jury. ~ Charles Rembar

Trial by jury in civil causes, ... trial by jury in criminal causes, [and] the benefits of the writ of habeas corpus ... all stand on the same footing; they are the common rights of Americans. ~ Richard Henry Lee

We have a Bill of Rights, we have trial by jury. We have a notion that you are - you're innocent until you're proven guilty. We have all these things. ~ Joe Biden

Cross-examination is beyond any doubt the greatest legal engine ever invented for the discovery of truth ... Cross-examination, not trial by jury, is the great and permanent contribution of the Anglo-American system of law to improved methods of trial-procedure. ~ John Henry Wigmore

Trial by jury. Live wherever you can make a living. How could a government based on such principles fail? ~ Stephen Ambrose

Trial by jury must be preserved. It is the best system ever invented for a free people in the world's history. ~ John Henry Wigmore

I do not apologize for advertising. I think it is as vital to the preservation of freedom in my country as the free exercise of publishing a newspaper or the free exercise of building a church or the free exercise of the right of trial by jury. ~ Thomas Dillon

The liberty of the press, trial by jury, the Habeas Corpus Writ, even Magna Carta itself, although justly deemed the paladia of freedom, are all inferior considerations, when compared with the general distribution of real property among every class of people. ~ Noah Webster

The object of any tyrant would be to overthrow or diminish trial by jury, for it is the lamp that shows that freedom lives. ~ Patrick Devlin, Baron Devlin

Well, you can't go about having blood feuds and stabbing each other like Crosicans or the Mafia," said the Colonel. "Say what you like, trial by jury is a sound system ~ Agatha Christie

Trial by jury is part of the bright constellation which leads to peace, liberty and safety. ~ Thomas Jefferson

Trial by jury is the palladium of our liberties. I do not know what a palladium is, but I am sure it is a good thing! ~ Mark Twain

I think that it is high time that we remembered that we have sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution. I think that it is high time that we remembered that the Constitution, as amended, speaks not only of the freedom of speech but also of trial by jury instead of trial by accusation. ~ Margaret Chase Smith

Suspicion is a virtue as long as its object is the public good, and as long as it stays within proper bounds ... Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. ~ Patrick Henry

The film festival measured a mile in length, from the Martinez to the Vieux Port, where sales executives tucked into their platters of fruits de mer, but was only fifty yards deep. For a fortnight the Croisette and its grand hotels willingly became a facade, the largest stage set in the world. Without realizing it, the crowds under the palm trees were extras recruited to play their traditional roles. As they cheered and hooted, they were far more confident than the film actors on display, who seemed ill at ease when they stepped from their limos, like celebrity criminals ferried to a mass trial by jury at the Palais, a full-scale cultural Nuremberg furnished with film clips of the atrocities they had helped to commit. ~ J.G. Ballard

But the old 1840s split between the religious, patriotic, Slavophile establishment and the progressive, humane, revolutionary Westernizers was giving way to the exacerbated conflict between the alienated positivist radicals of the 1860s who adopted the name Turgenev had given them, Nihilists, and those who thanked Russian Nationalism, Orthodoxy and Autocracy for the bloodless liberation of the serfs, introduction of trial by jury, reduction of the draft from twenty-five to five years, partial decentralization of ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Fortunately for the historian, the court to which his evidence is submitted has no fixed term; interesting cases can be argued before it indefinitely. The jury can remain out for as long as it takes to gather the requisite data and come to a sound decision... the historian can watch with delight or consternation as the case is tried and retried by others, who may prove his hunches right or wrong." The Kindness of Strangers ~ John Boswell

A close associate of his gave an interview in which the book was described as quotes 'fiction from being to end'. I suffered trial by tabloid for a couple of weeks, lots of insults in the press, in the columns - this man should be put in the tower and so on. ~ Anthony Holden

Life is a " vale of tears" a period of trial and suffering, an unpleasant but necessary preparation for the afterlife where alone man could expect to enjoy happiness - Archibald T. MacAllister (The Inferno; Dante Alighieri translated by John Ciardi) ~ Dante Alighieri

Completely confused as to who the real criminals were in this case, the jury had voted to wash their hands of everybody and they let him off. That had been the meaning of the conversation I'd had with him that afternoon, but I hadn't understood what was happening at all. There were many moments in the Vine like that one - where you might think today was yesterday, and yesterday was tomorrow, and so on. Because we all believed we were tragic, and we drank. We had that helpless, destined feeling. We would die with handcuffs on. We would be put a stop to, and it wouldn't be our fault. So we imagined. And yet we were always being found innocent for ridiculous reasons.

...We bought heroin with the money and split the heroin down the middle. Then he went looking for his girlfriend, and I went looking for mine, knowing that when there were drugs around, she surrendered. But I was in a bad condition - drunk, and having missed a night's sleep. As soon as the stuff entered my system, I passed out. Two hours went by without my noticing. I felt I'd only blinked my eyes, but when I opened them my girlfriend and a Mexican neighbor were working on me, doing everything they could to bring me back. The Mexican was saying, "There, he's coming around now."

We lived in a tiny, dirty apartment. When I realized how long I'd been out and how close I'd come to leaving it forever, our little home seemed to glitter like cheap jewelry. I was overjoyed not to be dead. Generally th ~ Denis Johnson

Why is it we must suffer the loss of something so dear before we realize what a treasure we had?
Why must the sun be darkened before we feel how genuinely impossible it is to live without its warmth?
Why within the misery of absence does love grow by such bounds?
Why must life be this way?
It is a strange existence where such suffering makes us far better people. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

Think about it. Politics is just a name for the way we get things done ... without fighting. We dicker and compromise and everybody thinks he has received a raw deal, but somehow after a tedious amount of talk we come up with some jury-rigged way to do it without getting anybody's head bashed in. That's politics. The only other way to settle a dispute is by bashing a few heads in ... and that is what happens when one or both sides is no longer willing to dicker. That's why I say politics is good even when it is bad
because the only alternative is force-and somebody gets hurt. -- Senator Tom Fries ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Dictatorships do cut down on rape, and pillage, not to mention sexual harassment, by the simple expedient of sending people to labour camps for life or cutting off their hands without a trial. ~ Barbara Amiel

There seldom is a single wave. Another way to look at it is, 'when it rains, it pours.' Good luck or bad luck often followed by more of the same. Whatever path you begin, it's almost impossible to change your direction. You're sent hurtling through space, crashing through experiences decided by the first few decisions you ever made. Binary choices set against something as simple as a yes or no in your earliest stages of development. As a Future Child, that would be your primitive choices in Genus. Actions, friendships, whether to smile in one moment or frown in the next. Those are all paths that, once set upon, are entirely unchangeable. At least, that's what I was designed to think. ~ Brandon R. Chinn

Men ... are bettered and improved by trial, and refined out of broken hopes and blighted expectations. ~ Frederick William Robertson

Why are so many of us enspelled by myths and folk stories in this modern age? Why do we continue to tell the same old tales, over and over again? I think it's because these stories are not just fantasy. They're about real life. We've all encountered wicked wolves, found fairy godmothers, and faced trial by fire. We've all set off into unknown woods at one point in life or another. We've all had to learn to tell friend from foe and to be kind to crones by the side of the road ... ~ Terri Windling

Gari in Russian means "burn!" ... I want to test myself, a trial by fire, so that my I is burned off. ~ Romain Gary

And now, I, Moroni would speaksomewhatconcerning these things; I would show unto the world that faith is things which are hoped for and not seen; wherefore, dispute not because ye seenot, for ye recieve no witness until after the trial of your faith.
For it was by Faith that Christ showed himself unto our fathers after he had risen from the dead; and he showed not himself unto them until after they had fiath in him; wherefore, it must needs be that some had faith in hime, for he showed himself not unto the world. ~ The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-day Saints

[T]he guilty as well as the innocent are entitled to due process of law. They are entitled to a fair trial. They are entitled to counsel. They are entitled to fair treatment from the police. The law enforcement officer has the same duty as the citizen-indeed, he has a higher duty-to abide by the letter and spirit of our Constitution and laws. You yourselves must be careful to obey the letter of the law. You yourselves must be intellectually honest in the enforcement of the law. ~ Harry S. Truman

Break a bone..and as the broken part heals it becomes the strongest part in it ... get hit by a virus, survive that and "supposedly" it can never get u again ... observe how ur skin that gets rubbed on a surface often becomes thicker and more rough with time ... remember how naive you were before and with each incident and accident with people that you've had ..it brought you to the "knowing better" person you are now ... you cant be stronger..if life doesn't try you every now and then ... and after each trial..it promises a stronger more immune version of you ~ Eman Farouk

The [Dow-Alcoa and Alcoa-IG] negotiations [of 1929] reveal strikingly the technique of cartel diplomacy - the steady application of "pressure" and the resort alternatively to challenges and blandishments. The similarity to power politics in which trial by battle is a last resort is marked. The procedure discloses the vast gulf between big business in practice and the patterns of behavior assumed in a regime of free competition. It shows how the conference table superseded the market as the arena for decision making. ~ George W. Stocking

Learn to fail with pride - and do so fast and cleanly. Maximise trial and error - by mastering the error part. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The problem with every judgment of sexual behavior is that it is made by people who aren't being stimulated as they are making the judgment. A jury that sees a woman in a sterile courtroom, asks her what she wanted, and then assumes that anything else she did was the responsibility of the man is insulting not only the woman but the power of sex. ~ Warren Farrell

These are the times in which a genius would wish to live. It is not in the still calm of life, or the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed. The habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties. Great necessities call out great virtues. When a mind is raised, and animated by scenes that engage the heart, then those qualities which would otherwise lay dormant, wake into life and form the character of the hero and the statesman. ~ Abigail Adams

When we suffer great losses -- and suffering and loss are universal experiences -- something will consume our emptiness and fill the void. The question is, will it be healthy and wise or unhealthy and fleeting? I chose to be consumed by God. I found that only Christ could satisfy me.

...intimacy in God's presence -- fellowship with Him -- is what most healed my heart and restored my soul. It took faithful, intentional, and deliberate time every day to pray, read Scripture, worship, and wait patiently in God's presence. But every moment was worth it. ~ Robert Rogers

Have you ever heard that old joke about juries? Do you really want to be judged by twelve people who weren't smart enough to get out of jury duty? Yes-that's exactly who you want judging you. Because juries are people unfamiliar with the letter of the law. And those are people who can be swayed-by lots of elements that have absolutely nothing to do with facts. ~ Emma Chase

Orchids manufacture their intricate devices from the common components of ordinary flowers, parts usually fitted for very different functions. If God had designed a beautiful machine to reflect his wisdom and power, surely he would not have used a collection of parts generally fashioned for other purposes. Orchids were not made by an ideal engineer; they are jury-rigged from a limited set of available components. Thus, they must have evolved from ordinary flowers. ~ Stephen Jay Gould

Prayer is a gift from Almighty God that transforms us, whether we bow our heads in solitude, or offer swift and silent prayers in times of trial. Prayer humbles us by reminding us of our place in creation. Prayer strengthens us by reminding us that God loves and cares for each and every soul in His creation. And prayer blesses us by reminding us that there is a divine plan that stands above all human plans. ~ George W. Bush

Practicing the presence of God is not on trial. Countless saints have already proved it. Indeed, the spiritual giants of all ages have known it. The results of this effort begin to show clearly in a month. They grow rich after six months, and glorious after ten years. This is the secret of the great saints of all ages. 'Pray without ceasing,' said Paul, 'in everything make your wants known unto God.' 'As many as are led by the spirit of God, these are the sons of God. ~ Frank C. Laubach

I was married by a judge. I should have asked for a jury. ~ Groucho Marx

I disagree with the followers of Marx and those of Adam Smith: the reason free markets work is because they allow people to be lucky, thanks to aggressive trial and error, not by giving rewards or "incentives" for skill. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

By all means, stay," Anne said. "Have a seat. We'll take care of you next."
"Yeah, see, I think someone else is going to be on trial next." Baring my teeth at her in a grin I pulled out my file folder. "I've got some interesting reading here. And I even brought copies for everyone so you don't have to share."
A distinguished-looking South American man on the end shook his head. "What is this? Another farce?"
"No, but bonus points for using a funny word. You really want to read what I have here. Anne, you'll be especially interested, since you have a starring role."
"Enough. Rhia - "
Reth quickly flicked his wrist at her; her mouth kept moving, but no sound came out. It was one of the most satisfying things I'd ever seen. Sure, that trick had sucked when he used it on me, but I wholly approved of it now. ~ Kiersten White

The historian James Anthony Froude wrote: "The worth of a man must be measured by his life, not by his failure under a singular and peculiar trial. Peter the apostle, though forewarned, three times denied his Master on the first alarm of danger; yet that Master, who knew his nature in its strength and in its weakness, chose him. ~ J. Oswald Sanders

Ways may someday be developed by which the government, without removing papers from secret drawers, can reproduce them in court, and by which it will be enabled to expose to a jury the most intimate occurrences of the home. ~ Louis D. Brandeis

But no matte what kind of an understanding is adopted, whether associated with positivism, which asserts that the truth can only be reached by trial and error, or rationalism, which asserts that everything can be explained and grasped by reason, whether the perspective of romanticism, which overemphasizes imagination and sensitivity, or an approach based on ardent naturalism, whether based on realism, which aims to describe everything as it is including its shortcomings, or a curiosity-raising approach such as surrealism, whether idealism, which asserts that there is nothing real but ideas, or cubism, which asserts that there is nothing real but instead of direct description, or some other such current or perspective, that is not true poetry. ~ M. Fethullah Gulen

Such is the state of things in England, and it is well that it should be realised by all of us; but it must not be supposed for a moment that I am afraid of it. I lament it deeply, because I foresee that it may be the ruin of many souls; but I have no fear at all that it really can do aught of serious harm to the Word of God, to Holy Church, to our Almighty King, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, Faithful and True, or to His Vicar on earth. Christianity has been too often in what seemed deadly peril, that we should fear for it any new trial now. So far is certain; on the other hand, what is uncertain, and in these great contests commonly is uncertain, and what is commonly a great surprise, when it is witnessed, is the particular mode by which, in the event, Providence rescues and saves His elect inheritance. Sometimes our enemy is turned into a friend; sometimes he is despoiled of that special virulence of evil which was so threatening; sometimes he falls to pieces of himself; sometimes he does just so much as is beneficial, and then is removed. Commonly the Church has nothing more to do than to go on in her own proper duties, in confidence and peace; to stand still and to see the salvation of God. ~ John Henry Newman

The jury system has come to stand for all we mean by English justice. The scrutiny of 12 honest jurors provides defendants and plaintiffs alike a safeguard from arbitrary perversion of the law. ~ Winston Churchill

If you have any idea for a poem, an exact grid of intent, you are on the wrong path, a dead-end alley, at the top of a cliff you haven't even climbed. This is a lesson that can only be learned by trial and error. ~ Mary Ruefle

The work of many of the greatest men, inspired by duty, has been done amidst suffering and trial and difficulty. They have struggled against the tide, and reached the shore exhausted. ~ Samuel Smiles