>>> Item number 1163, dated 95/03/07 19:01:55 -- ALL
Date: Tue, 7 Mar 1995 19:01:55 -0600 Reply-To: H-Net and ASLH Legal History Discussion list <H-LAW@UICVM.BITNET> Sender: H-Net and ASLH Legal History Discussion list <H-LAW@UICVM.BITNET> From: Chris Waldrep <cfcrw@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu> Subject: Bushel's Case
From: Eugene Levine <elevine@world.std.com>
One of the people at work has asked me to demonstrate the utility of the 'Net by asking what I can find out about Bushel's case, a colonial US case involving William Penn (the younger). Since the inquirer is actually as interested in the 'Net as he is in the case, this request is not just laziness on my part :)
Can anyone add interesting academic citations (not the case itself, which he already has)? perhaps some obscure references or interesting tangential information?
All replies will be gratefully accepted (and forwarded).
Gene Levine
elevine@world.std.com
>>> Item number 1172, dated 95/03/08 19:52:22 -- ALL
Date: Wed, 8 Mar 1995 19:52:22 -0600 Reply-To: H-Net and ASLH Legal History Discussion list <H-LAW@UICVM.BITNET> Sender: H-Net and ASLH Legal History Discussion list <H-LAW@UICVM.BITNET> From: Chris Waldrep <cfcrw@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu> Subject: Bushel's Case
The best point would be Tom Green's discussion of the case in Verdict According to Conscience, which treats it in the broader context of the history of jury nullification in criminal cases. (It was of course an English case, not a colonial American one.)
David Millon
Professor of Law and Director,
Frances Lewis Law Center
School of Law
Washington and Lee University
Lexington Virginia 24450
phone: 703-463-8993 fax: 703-463-8488
internet: dkm@wlu.edu
From: Jim Hankey <jhankey@liberty.uc.wlu.edu>
Your workmate should take a look at "Verdict According to Conscience," by Thomas A. Green, an excellent volume on the history of jury nullification from the beginnings of the jury system, in 12th century England, up to the mid-19th century in America. There is quite a bit of detail about Bushell's Case, which, BTW, was not a colonial case. Penn still was in England when he was tried for leading an illegal conventicle. When the jury found him innocent, the jurors were fined for attaint. Eight paid, but Bushell and three others refused and were jailed. Chief Justice Vaughn wrote the opinion, in which he laid down the rule that a jury's verdict cannot be questioned.
One reason Green's is an excellent volume for information on this subject is that he shows the connections between Bushell's Case and the jury nullification arguments made by John Lilburne in his treason trials just after the Revolution. Bushell might not have been acquitted if Lilburne had not already forced the courts to accept the premise that juries are free to judge according to conscience.
I hope this helps. I have more info, as well, if it's needed, but rather than tie up all sorts of bandwidth, I'll stop here and see if this will suffice.
Jim Hankey, 3L
Washington & Lee Law School
"Some degree of abuse is inseparable from the proper use of every thing; and in no instance is this more true than in that of the press."
James Madison, 4 Elliott's Debates on the Federal Constitution (1876), p. 571.