Thomas Jefferson Quotes

Juries are the constitutional institution designed to protect ordinary citizens against the wealthy and powerful.

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.

Legal process is an essential part of the democratic process.

I believe in the jury system.

The key issue is not who is in charge but what. Russia's problem is constitutional. There is no division of powers. The judges, the police, and the legislature all work for the same people, and there is essentially no trial by jury. As a result, anyone can be arrested and accused of anything, and conviction is almost guaranteed.

The civil jury is a valuable safeguard to liberty.

If one man can be allowed to determine for himself what is law, every man can. That means first chaos, then tyranny. Legal process is an essential part of the democratic process.

We are not in the regime of Aurangzeb. We are in the regime of rule of law. When rule of law is concerned, it applies to government, it applies to Supreme Court, it applies to everybody.

I have faith in the jury system.

You have a good judicial system in the U.S., as you have learned from the Nixon-Watergate period.

Like most Americans of my age, I was very impressed by the dynamic capacities of the law, demonstrated by the Civil Rights Movement and then Watergate, animated by Sam Ervin's mantra that no person is above the law.

The right to a trial is a core principle of the American legal system. Depriving Americans of these essential liberties undermines the Constitution while doing nothing to strengthen our national security.

Putting pressure on grand juries to indict in my view is un-American. A grand jury should be allowed to be fair and impartial. They shouldn't have people yelling and screaming.

No war, foreign or domestic, is a sufficient reason for shutting up the courts … The shutting up of the courts is an abdication, a total dissolution of government ….

I would rather have my fate in the hands of 23 representative citizens of the county [the grand jury] than in the hands of a politically appointed judge.

A fair judicial system takes time to work.

Trial by jury of facts where they arise is one of the greatest securities of the lives, liberties and estates of the people.

Can I suggest that the sheriff and the district attorney, in the lunch break, go out and read the Constitution.

Trial by jury is the inherent and invaluable right of every British subject in these colonies

Trial by jury slows the wheels of justice.

… due process of law is not for the sole benefit of an accused. It is the best insurance for the Government itself against those blunders which leave lasting stains on a system of justice but which are bound to occur on ex parte consideration

I don't want to harm my government. I want to help my government. But the fact that they are willing to completely ignore due process, they're willing to declare guilt without ever seeing a trial, these are things that we need to work against as a society and say, 'Hey, this is not appropriate.'

We are not living up to Thomas Jefferson's idea of what a trial by jury means.

Standing up on the right to trial by jury is something that, really, a lot of people should agree with, you know, both on the Right and the Left.

Our civilization has decided that determining the guilt or innocence of men is a thing too important to be trusted to trained men. When it wants a library catalogued, or the solar system discovered, or any trifle of that kind, it uses up its specialists. But when it wishes anything done which is really serious, it collects twelve of the ordinary men standing round. The same thing was done, if I remember right, by the Founder of Christianity.