915 Page – American State Trials 1918 Volume X Leo Frank Document

Here is the translated text as follows:

The courts of the United States will be uniform, or they will become so through the revision and correction of the Supreme Court. This ensures that the same principles will pervade the entire Union. However, the opinions of petit juries will likely differ across various states.

The decisions of courts of justice will not be influenced by political and local principles and prejudices. If inferior courts commit errors, these can be rectified. However, if juries make mistakes, there is no revision or control over their verdicts, and therefore, no mode to obtain uniformity in their decisions. Additionally, petit juries are under no obligation, by the terms of their oath, to decide the constitutionality of any law; their determination, therefore, will be extra-judicial. I also imagine that no jury would wish to have the right to determine such great, important, and difficult questions. I hope no jury can be found that will exercise the power desired over the statutes of Congress against the opinion of the Federal courts.

I have consulted with my brother, Judge Griffin, and I now deliver the opinion of the court: "That the petit jury has no right to decide on the constitutionality of the statute on which the traverser is indicted; and that, if the jury should exercise that power, they would thereby usurp the authority entrusted by the Constitution of the United States to this court." Governed by this opinion, the court will not allow the counsel for the traverser to argue before the petit jury that they have a right to decide on the constitutionality of the statute on which the traverser stands indicted. If the counsel for the traverser had offered sufficient arguments to the court to show that the petit jury had this right, the court, upon being convinced that the opinion delivered was erroneous, would have changed it; for they hold it a much greater reproach for a judge to continue in his error than to retract.

The gentlemen of the profession know that questions have sometimes occurred in state courts regarding whether acts of assembly had expired or had been repealed. However, no one will say that such questions were ever submitted to a jury.