Essay on the Trial by Jury: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

Essay on the Trial by Jury, credited to Lysander Spooner, is available as a LibriVox volunteer audiobook. This guide identifies the recording, its source summary and its audio tracks.

About the work

The LibriVox catalogue summary, preserved with the recording, reads:

This is a LibriVox recording of an Essay on the Trial by Jury, by Lysander Spooner. Read by Bethanne. FOR more than six hundred years that is, since Magna Carta, in 1215 there has been no clearer principle of English or American constitutional law, than that, in criminal cases, it is not only the right and duty of juries to judge what are the facts, what is the law, and what was the moral intent of the accused; but that it is also their right, and their primary and paramount duty, to judge of the justice of the law, and to hold all laws invalid, that are, in their opinion, unjust or oppressive, and all persons guiltless in violating, or resisting the execution of, such laws. So begins Spooner’s epic on the jury, its origins and history. Spooner examines the history and powers of a jury, from the magna carta in King John’s time, to the practices in the 18th century. A classic work on law, Spooner argues that the decision of the jury is sovereign over the king’s law. (Summary by Bethanne) LibriVox project page: http://librivox.org/essay-on-the-trial-by-jury-by-lysander-spooner/ For more information, or to volunteer, please visit librivox.org.

Recording facts

• Recording title: Essay on the Trial by Jury
• Author credits: Lysander Spooner
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 22
• Listed recording duration: 11:28:41

Catalogue topics

• trial
• jury
• law
• essay
• court
• justice
• legal procedure
• jurors

Track guide

1. 00 - Notes — 2:56
2. 01 - Ch 1 - The Right of Juries to Judge the Justice of Laws — 43:16
3. 02 - Ch 2 - Part 1 - Trial by Jury Defined by Magna Carta — 53:39
4. 03 - Ch 2 - Part 2 - Language of Magna Carta — 49:17
5. 04 - Ch 3 - Part 1 - Additionnal Proofs of the Rights and Duties of Jurors — 41:27
6. 05 - Ch 3 - Part 2 - Ancient Common Law Juries were Mere Courts of Conscience — 23:31
7. 06 - Ch 3 - Part 3 - Ancient Common Law Juries were Mere Courts of Conscience — 43:59
8. 07 - Ch 3 - Part 4 - Oaths of Jurors — 30:12
9. 08 - Ch 3 - Part 5 - Right of Jurors to fix the Sentence — 33:31
10. 09 - Ch 3 - Part 6 - The Coronation Oath — 25:50
11. 10 - Ch 4 - The Rights and Duties of Juries in Civil Suits — 39:14
12. 11 - Ch 5 - Part 1 - Objections Answered — 26:58
13. 12 - Ch 5 - Part 2 - Objections Answered — 25:18
14. 13 - Ch 6 - Juries of the Present Day Illegal — 43:42
15. 14 - Ch 7 - Part 1 - Illegal Judges — 26:27
16. 15 - Ch 7 - Part 2 - Illegal Judges — 33:38
17. 16 - Ch 8 - Free Administration of Justice — 15:06
18. 17 - Ch 9 - The Criminal Intent — 31:46
19. 18 - Ch 10 - Moral Considerations for Jurors — 7:11
20. 19 - Ch 11 - Authority of Magna Carta — 41:04
21. 20 - Ch 12 - Limitations Imposed Upon the Majority by the Trial by Jury — 41:32
22. 21 - Appendix — 9:16

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This is a record from LibriVox's official Internet Archive collection, with a public-domain licence recorded in its metadata. LibriVox's policy includes its catalogue summaries as well as its recordings. Its public-domain assessment follows United States law; copyright status can differ elsewhere. The summary and track facts are reproduced and reformatted from that record. Dates attached to the archive upload are not treated as original book publication dates.