What is the history of juries in our system of justice?

Justice can our ship be righted?

What are your rights and duties when you are called upon to be on a jury?

Well unless we go back and read some history before the USA was founded most of us really don’t know and just follow the judge and the governments attorneys instructions. From there I will cover a more recent history of jurist duties and rights as to examples of how to right the ship and take back our power not only in the jury box but taking away power not given to government and legislatures.

The founders that instituted and formed the US jury system were heavily influenced by the case of John Peter Zenger. How many of us heard this name or case in our grade school, high school, college or even law classes ? A case that was probably the most important criminal case in the formation of our First Amendment - - PROTECTED rights ( See this sustack on Consitutional rights and why we do not have them https://martinhoer.substack.com/p/constitutional-rights) and our right to tiral by a jury of our peers.

Just who was J Peter Zenger( October 26, 1697 – July 28, 1746 )?

John Peter Zenger was born in a part of the Rhine country of Germany called the Palatinate. This area was a prime source of emigration to America because the country had been impoverished by a succession of wars and the extravagance of the local rulers. In 1710, 3,000 Palatinate refugees were sent by Queen Anne of England in order to establish the production of naval stores in New York. In return for seven years of labor, the emigrants were promised grants of land. (1)
Zenger to pay his debt back was assigned as an apprentice to William Bradford – a New York printer. After that 8 years Zenger moved to Maryland and started a printing business there, but by 1722 moved back to New York, had a brief partnership with Bradford then started his own printing business. Mainly printing religious and political items.

Soon after Governor William Cosby was appointed to office of Governor he started doing things to enhance his wealth. At the time their were two main factions in New York, The Cosby faction and those influential people not in the Cosby faction. Bradford and Zenger were the two mail printers in New York and Bradford was supportive of the Cosby faction. The other faction convinced Zenger to print their side. Since Zenger was not proficient in English and writing this faction had writers that wwrote articles and Zenger published them. (2)

After a year of articles critical of the Crowns Governor, Zenger was arrested on charges of sedition and libel. His original attorney a man by the name of James Alexander, one of the contributing writers of the critical articles was disbarred by Governor Crosby and as a result of this and a high bail Zenger was jailed for 8 months.

A new man stepped into the picture from Philadelphia. At the time one of the more famous lawyers in the colonies – Andrew Hamilton. Being from Philadelphia Hamilton had no ties to the New York political scene. At that time the colonies had brought over English common law as a legal system and under that system true was not a valid defense in criticizing the crown. ( is any of this sounding familiar in todays political environment?) It was a unique defense that surely should have resulted in a guilty verdict. In a stirring defense Hamilton admitted Zenger printed the articles, even though criticism of the crown was illegal. Hamilton called for the jury to find Zenger not guilty because the articles were truthful despite the articles breaking of the law. Hamilton was calling for jury nullification. This despite the judges orders to only look at the law and whether it was broken ( sounding familiar to today’s court rooms where defense and government judges tell you to only look at the law and if it was broken?)? Jurors in a stroke of defiance disobeyed the judges orders and found Zenger NOT GUILTY! (3) (4)

The case did not set precedent but it was a symbolic victory for the press. Fearing more jury nullifications, the government sought few seditious prosecutions over the coming years. Newspapers took advantage of this new “freedom” and intensified their scrutiny of British rule in the colonies, fueling the cries for independence from England. This criticism of British rule led to the American Revolution. The ability of the press to criticize the government was central to the creation of the First Amendment in 1791. Gouverneur Morris, American statesman, founding father and representative of Pennsylvania at the Constitutional Convention of 1787, said 50 years after the Zenger trial that: “The trial of Zenger in 1735 was the germ of American freedom, the morning star of that liberty which subsequently revolutionized America.” 4)

In 1794 in Georgia v Brailsford the US Supreme Court decided that a jury that although they would ordinarily be expected to follow the judge's directions, they could not be compelled to do so. This held until after a century of judges – government judges – complaining and stating only they should interpret what the law said or meant and juries should follow their orders/interpretations. In 1895 in Sparf and Hansen v US the Supreme court reversed the Brailsford decision as wrong and ruled that the jury had a duty to apply the law as set by the trial judge. 5) So we are now full circle our judicial system is just like the English system where by the government is the ultimate decider of laws and juries are no more than rubber stamps for the government.

During the time frame from founding to even today juries have decided for themselves if the law is a just law and being justly applied.

A few examples of jury nullification: Fugitive Slave Act, 6), Prohibition, various drug laws among others. In modern times drug laws and of course the most famous or infamous in our time OJ Simpson. In the case of the Fugitive Slave act, prohbition, drugs laws in each instance the Supreme Court had ruled in favor of these acts as legal. In each of these cases the citizens ruled otherwise. These 3 things were not repealed because government judges and lawmakers ( our owners?) decided they had made a mistake, they were repealed because government judges and lawyers were IGNORED by the citizens when brought to trial! The government simply could not get a conviction. We had a case of this here in Nebraska a few years ago 8) in this case the prosecutor said 60 to 70 percent of the potential jurors his office interviews in cases support legalizing medical marijuana. So the government prosecutor dropped the case for various reasons but he also realized a conviction would be nearly impossible. This is all it takes for bad laws to be done away with. Prosecutors love winning and hate loosing. If the jury pool knows its rights and duties they will drop prosecution of unpopular laws.


As a jurist you cannot decide if the law is constitutional you can only decide if the law is being justly applied. This leaves a chasm of ways to acquit when there are bad or unjust laws on the books. Who is passing these laws? It si our “representatives” that run for office ouder the guise they are one of us but promptly go to work for the government when elected? - another substack for another day. As a jurist you cannot be punished for your decision no matter what. The judge, prosecutor and the government have no way to reverse a criminal acquital. Once acquitted a defendant – former defendant cannot be recharged with the same criminal act. The governments game is over as double jeopardy is not allowed.

1) https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/history/us-history-biographies/john-peter-zenger
2) https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/history/us-history-biographies/john-peter-zenger
3) https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/john-peter-zenger/

4) https://werehistory.org/john-peter-zenger/
5) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification_in_the_United_States

6) https://nationalcenter.org/ncppr/2001/11/03/fugitive-slave-act-1850/

7) https://www.findlaw.com/criminal/criminal-procedure/jury-nullification.html

8) https://www.ketv.com/article/nebraska-prosecutors-to-drop-case-against-mother-and-son-who-own-cbd-store/25894093

Once again I will state we have come full circle in our judicial system. From the government – ie British Crown deciding jurors must obey the judge to today where the government is telling us we must obey the judge. Between the two periods we had a what many would call uneducated people – that made hard decisions and nullified horrendous government laws on slavery and prohibition. A time when citizens knew their rights and duties. One has to ask who was more educated them or todays highly indoctrinated er educated. Seems to me while not having multiple degrees or in many cases even a basic what we call education they had something many of us do not – an understanding of their place in our system of government.

So now we know the history of our judical system and OUR place in it. WE hold ALL the power in determining not only guilt but the justness of the law. What are WE going to do about it?

Footnote: scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3602&context=lcp is a outstanding pdf covering a multitude of jury cases in which juries ignored the government judges instructions. Very well worth reading and letting it challenge our current beliefs in our jury system.

Also jija.org has a wealth of information on our rights and duties as a citizen

As a side note. Just as an example as to how obscure this fact is. While an officer of the Nebraska LP I was called by Larry Dodge a prominent Libertarian of that time. He had with the help of a friend and set up a educational organization – Fully Informed Jury Association – FIJA. He was coming through Nebraska and wanted to talk to whomever he thought would be interested in setting up a state FIJA. With being a freshly minted dad, working in town full time and farming nearly 300 acres at the time my time was limited. I called the NELP state chair at the time and asked if he would be interested. I described the idea of jury nullification to him. He was at one time a high school history teacher. He stated very clearly several times it was a crazy idea and no such thing existed. Finally after going through it with him I said do me a favor, go look up the case of J Peter Zenger. About a week later he called me and said he had no idea of the history of nullification and was very interested. To cut the sory sort we met with Larry Dodge started a state FIJA but it died on the vine as many of us at the time were younger having children and just getting started in life so sadly life got in the way. Looking back what if several of us had stuck with this – despite being labled crazy and other niceties that we already had been called due to being libertarians? Would we have a free society today vs the soft or not so soft police state where edicts are issued to wear diapers on our faces, shutting businesses down, requiring deadly jabs? What if those that ignored the edicts – not even laws they were demands from the throne of our elected “representatives” – were arrested and demanded a trial by jury – if you sat on that jury would your decision be different today after reading this substack and the provided links than yesterday?